Moreover Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was still locked up in the court of the guard, saying, “Yahweh who does it, Yahweh who forms it to establish it—Yahweh is his name, says: ‘Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great and difficult things, which you don’t know.’ For Yahweh, the God of Israel, says concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down to make a defense against the mounds and against the sword; while men come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have killed in my anger and in my wrath, and for all whose wickedness I have hidden my face from this city: ‘Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them; and I will reveal to them abundance of peace and truth. I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against me and by which they have transgressed against me. This city will be to me for a name of joy, for praise, and for glory, before all the nations of the earth, which will hear all the good that I do to them, and will fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I provide to it.’ ”
Yahweh says: “Yet again there will be heard in this place, about which you say, ‘It is waste, without man and without animal, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without animal,’ the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, ‘Give thanks to Yahweh of Armies, for Yahweh is good, for his loving kindness endures forever;’ who bring thanksgiving into Yahweh’s house. For I will cause the captivity of the land to be reversed as at the first,” says Yahweh.
Yahweh of Armies says: “Yet again there will be in this place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, in the cities of the South, in the land of Benjamin, in the places around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, the flocks will again pass under the hands of him who counts them,” says Yahweh.
“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will perform that good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah.
“In those days and at that time, I will cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up to David. He will execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell safely. This is the name by which she will be called: Yahweh our righteousness.”
For Yahweh says: “David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. The Levitical priests won’t lack a man before me to offer burnt offerings, to burn meal offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.”
Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, saying, “Yahweh says: ‘If you can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, so that there will not be day and night in their time; then may my covenant also be broken with David my servant, that he won’t have a son to reign on his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the army of the sky can’t be counted, and the sand of the sea can’t be measured; so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant and the Levites who minister to me.’ ”
Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, saying, “Don’t consider what this people has spoken, saying, ‘Has Yahweh cast off the two families which he chose?’ Thus they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.” Yahweh says: “If my covenant of day and night fails, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then I will also cast away the offspring of Jacob, and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his offspring to be rulers over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to be reversed and will have mercy on them.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26 This prophecy refers to the same subject; nor was…
This prophecy refers to the same subject; nor was it to be wondered at, that God spoke so much of the same thing, for it was necessary to render the Jews inexcusable, as they always pretended ignorance, except God made frequent repetitions. And this was also the reason why Paul said, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses everything should be established, when he said that he would come the second and the third time to Corinth. (2 Corinthians 13:1) He intimated that his coming would not be useless, for except they repented they could not have escaped by pretending ignorance, as hypocrites are wont to do. It was, then, God’s purpose to confirm by many prophecies what he had once testified respecting the restoration of the people; but he had an especial care for the faithful, that they might not grow faint and succumb under those many trials which remained for so long a time; for as some died in exile, they might have forgotten the covenant of God, and thus the soul might have perished with the body. And those who were to return to their own country had need of no common support, so that they might continue firm for seventy years, and rely with confidence on God’s mercy. We now, then, understand why God repeated the doctrine as to the return of the people.
It is said that the word of Jehovah came to Jeremiah while he was yet in prison Then the Prophet was bidden to consult the benefit of his enemies, and to promote their welfare, however unworthy they were through their ingratitude; for though they had not all demanded his death, yet the greater part of them had clamorously condemned him, and he had been with difficulty delivered, and was now lying in prison. It was a great cruelty that the people, while he was faithfully discharging his prophetic office, should thus furiously rage against him. He is, however, bidden still to proceed in the duties of his office, to comfort them, to ease their grief, and to afford them some alleviation in their evils and miseries.
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There is also no doubt but that it was profitable to Jeremiah himself; for it was a most iniquitous reward, that he should, while serving God faithfully and conscientiously, be cast ignominiously into prison, and be there kept a captive so long. It was, then, some mitigation of his grief, that God appeared to him in that very prison; it was an evidence that God esteemed him higher than all the Jews. God did not then speak in the Temple, nor throughout the whole city. The prison then was God’s sanctuary, and there he gave responses to his Prophet, though he was wont to do this before from the mercy-seat, from the ark of the covenant. We hence see how great was the honor that God was pleased at that time to bestow in a manner on a prison, when he had forsaken his own Temple.
Now follows the prophecy, the substance of which is, that though the city was to be given up into the hand of the king of Babylon, yet that calamity was not to be perpetual, for God at length, after the completion of seventy years, would restore it. But why this promise was given has been stated already: it was given that the faithful might submit patiently to God, and suffer themselves with calm minds to be chastised, and also recumb on the hope the promise gave them, and thus feel assured, that as they were smitten by God’s hand, their punishment would prove their medicine and an aid to their salvation. Now, then, we perceive what this prophecy is, and also for what purpose it was delivered.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20, 24 Which was in the king’s house at Jerusalem, as…
Which was in the king’s house at Jerusalem, as Jer. 32:1, 2.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Jer 33:1 Moreover the word of the LORD came…
Jer 33:1 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying,
Ver. 1. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time.] To the same purpose with the former, {Jer 32:1} which is reckoned his fourteenth sermon, as this his fifteenth; by both we see that "the word of God is not bound," though the preacher may; {2Ti 2:9} "It runs and is glorified," is free and not fettered. {2Th 3:1}
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While he was yet shut up.] God forsaketh not his prisoners, but giveth them oft extraordinary comforts. Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, being a long time held prisoner by Charles V for the defence of the gospel, was demanded what upheld him all that time? he answered, Divinas martyrum consolationes se sensisse, that he felt in his soul the divine consolations of martyrs, in whom as the afflictions of Christ do abound, so do comforts by Christ abound much more. {2Co 1:5}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 See Poole "Jer 32:2". Jeremiah was forced out of…
See Poole "Jer 32:2". Jeremiah was forced out of the temple, God followeth him to the prison, and there revealeth his mind to him once and again. The wickedness of the Jews in persecuting the prophet could not make God’s promises of no effect for mercy to be showed to the people after the captivity, which though made before, are again confirmed a second time, for this chapter for substance contains no more than promises of the like nature with those in the foregoing chapters.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 17 Observe here, I. The date of this comfortable prophecy…
Observe here, I. The date of this comfortable prophecy which God entrusted Jeremiah with. It is not exact in the time, only that it was after that in the foregoing chapter, when things were still growing worse and worse; it was the second time. God speaketh once, yea, twice, for the encouragement of his people. We are not only so disobedient that we have need of precept upon precept to bring us to our duty, but so distrustful that we have need of promise upon promise to bring us to our comfort. This word, as the former, came to Jeremiah when he was in prison. Note, No confinement can deprive God's people of his presence; no locks nor bars can shut out his gracious visits; nay, oftentimes as their afflictions abound their consolations much more abound, and they have the most reviving communications of his favour when the world frowns upon them. Paul's sweetest epistles were those that bore date out of a prison.
II. The prophecy itself. A great deal of comfort is wrapped up in it for the relief of the captives, to keep them from sinking into despair. Observe,
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1. Who it is that secures this comfort to them (Jer 33:2): It is the Lord, the maker thereof, the Lord that framed it, He is the maker and former of heaven and earth, and therefore has all power in his hands; so it refers to Jeremiah's prayer, Jer 32:17. He is the maker and former of Jerusalem, of Zion, built them at first, and therefore can rebuild them - built them for his own praise, and therefore will. He formed it, to establish it, and therefore it shall be established till those things be introduced which cannot be shaken, but shall remain for ever. He is the maker and former of this promise; he has laid the scheme for Jerusalem's restoration, and he that has formed it will establish it, he that has made the promise will make it good; for Jehovah is his name, a God giving being to his promises by the performance of them, and when he does this he is known by that name (Exo 6:3), a perfecting God. When the heavens and the earth were finished, then, and not till then, the creator is called Jehovah, Gen 2:4.
2. How this comfort must be obtained and fetched in - by prayer (Jer 33:3): Call upon me, and I will answer them. The prophet, having received some intimations of this kind, must be humbly earnest with God for further discoveries of his kind intentions. He had prayed (Jer 32:16), but he must pray again. Note, Those that expect to receive comforts from God must continue instant in prayer. We must call upon him, and then he will answer us. Christ himself must ask, and it shall be given him, Psa 2:8. I will show thee great and mighty things (give thee a clear and full prospect of them), hidden things, which, though in part discovered already, yet thou knowest not, thou canst not understand or give credit to. Or this may refer not only to the prediction of these things which Jeremiah, if he desire it, shall be favoured with, but to the performance of the things themselves which the people of God, encouraged by this prediction, must pray for. Note, Promises are given, not to supersede, but to quicken and encourage prayer. See Eze 36:37.
3. How deplorable the condition of Jerusalem was which made it necessary that such comforts as these should be provided for it, and notwithstanding which its restoration should be brought about in due time (Jer 33:4, Jer 33:5): The houses of this city, not excepting those of the kings of Judah, are thrown down by the mounts, or engines of battery, and by the sword, or axes, or hammers. It is the same word that is used Eze 26:9, With his axes he shall break down thy towers. The strongest stateliest houses, and those that were best furnished, were levelled with the ground. The fifth verse comes in in a parenthesis, giving a further instance of the present calamitous state of Jerusalem. Those that came to fight with the Chaldeans, to beat them off from the siege, did more hurt than good, provoked the enemy to be more fierce and furious in their assaults, so that the houses in Jerusalem were filled with the dead bodies of men, who died of the wounds they received in sallying out upon the besiegers. God says that they were such as he had slain in his anger, for the enemies' sword was his sword and their anger his anger. But, it seems, the men that were slain were generally such as had distinguished themselves by their wickedness, for they were the very men for whose wickedness God did now hide himself from this city, so that he was just in all he brought upon them.
4. What the blessings are which God has in store for Judah and Jerusalem, such as will redress all their grievances.
(1.) Is their state diseased? Is it wounded? God will provide effectually for the healing of it, though the disease was thought mortal and incurable, Eze 7:22. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint (Isa 1:5); but (Jer 33:6) I will bring it health and cure; I will prevent the death, remove the sickness, and set all to rights again," Jer 30:17. Note, Be the case ever so desperate, if God undertake the cure, he will effect it. The sin of Jerusalem was the sickness of it (Isa 1:6); its reformation therefore will be its recovery. And the following words tell us how that is wrought: "I will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth; I will give it to them in due time, and give them an encouraging prospect of it in the mean time." Peace stands here for all good; peace and truth are peace according to the promise and in pursuance of that: or peace and truth are peace and the true religion, peace and the true worship of God, in opposition to the many falsehoods and deceits by which they had been led away from God. We may apply it more generally, and observe, [1.] That peace and truth are the great subject-matter of divine revelation. These promises here lead us to the gospel of Christ, and in that God has revealed to us peace and truth, the method of true peace - truth to direct us, peace to make us easy. Grace and truth, and abundance of both, come by Jesus Christ. Peace and truth are the life of the soul, and Christ came that we might have that life, and might have it more abundantly. Christ rules by the power of truth (Joh 18:37) and by it he gives abundance of peace, Psa 72:7; Psa 85:10. [2.] That the divine revelation of peace and truth brings health and cure to all those that by faith receive it: it heals the soul of the diseases it has contracted, as it is a means of sanctification, Joh 17:17. He sent his word and healed them, Psa 107:20. And it puts the soul into good order, and keeps it in a good frame and fit for the employments and enjoyments of the spiritual and divine life.
(2.) Are they scattered and enslaved, and is their nation laid in ruins? "I will cause their captivity to return (Jer 33:7), both that of Israel and that of Judah" (for though those who returned under Zerubbabel were chiefly of Judah, and Benjamin, and Levi, yet afterwards many of all the other tribes returned), "and I will rebuild them, as I built them at first." When they by repentance do their first works God will by their restoration do his first works.
(3.) Is sin the procuring cause of all their troubles? That shall be pardoned and subdued, and so the root of the judgments shall be killed, Jer 33:8. [1.] By sin they have become filthy, and odious to God's holiness, but God will cleanse them, and purify them from their iniquity. As those that were ceremonially unclean, and were therefore shut out from the tabernacle, when they were sprinkled with the water of purification had liberty of access to it again, so had they to their own land, and the privileges of it, when God had cleansed them from their iniquities. In allusion to that sprinkling, David prays, Purge me with hyssop. [2.] By sin they have become guilty, and obnoxious to his justice; but he will pardon all their iniquities, will remove the punishment to which for sin they were bound over. All who by sanctifying grace are cleansed from the filth of sin, by pardoning mercy are freed from the guilt of it.
(4.) Have both their sins and their sufferings turned to the dishonour of God? Their reformation and restoration shall redound as much to his praise, Jer 33:9. Jerusalem thus rebuilt, Judah thus repeopled, shall be to me a name of joy, as pleasing to God as ever they have been provoking, and a praise and an honour before all the nations. They, being thus restored, shall glorify God by their obedience to him, and he shall glorify himself by his favours to them. This renewed nation shall be as much a reputation to religion as formerly it has been a reproach to it. The nations shall hear of all the good that God has wrought in them by his grace and of all the good he has wrought for them by his providence. The wonders of their return out of Babylon shall make as great a noise in the world as ever the wonders of their deliverance out of Egypt did. and they shall fear and tremble for all this goodness. [1.] The people of God themselves shall fear and tremble; they shall be much surprised at it, shall be afraid of offending so good a God and of forfeiting his favour. Hos 3:5, They shall fear the Lord and his goodness. [2.] The neighbouring nations shall fear because of the prosperity of Jerusalem, shall look upon the growing greatness of the Jewish nation as really formidable, and shall be afraid of making them their enemies. When the church is fair as the moon, and clear as the sun, she is terrible as an army with banners.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Moreover the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah…
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time,.... Not that this was precisely the second time that the word of the Lord came to the prophet, for it had come to him many more times than those; but this was the second time on the same occasion and subject; for the subject of this chapter is the same with that of the former, concerning the Messiah, and the happiness of the church in his times:
(while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison): though the prophet could not go out from hence, and publish his prophecies, yet the Lord visits him again and again; and his presence made the prison a palace to him; and though his afflictions, abounded for the sake of him, his comforts abounded through him; and though he was bound, the word of the Lord was not; it had a free course, and ran, and was glorified; it found its way into the prison, and also out of it:
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saying: as follows:
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24 The taking of Jerusalem, carrying away the people, their…
The taking of Jerusalem, carrying away the people, their return, ver. 1-8. Joyful state and settled government, ver. 9-14. Christ the branch of righteousness, his everlasting kingdom and priesthood, and blessed seed, ver. 15-26.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 In this chapter the prophet predicts a restoration of…
CHAPTER XXXIII
In this chapter the prophet predicts a restoration of Israel
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and Judah to the favour of God, attended with such glorious
circumstances as shall astonish all the world, 1-9.
Their prosperity from that period is then described by a
beautiful enumeration of circumstances, 10-13.
Thus leads to the promise of the Messiah, the grand subject of
the prophetical writings, and the happiness and stability which
the children of Israel shall enjoy under his government;
promises which, in so far as they respect the great body of the
Jews, remain still to be fulfilled, 14-26.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIII
Verse 1. Moreover the word of the Lord] This was in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, Jeremiah being still shut up in prison: but he was now in the court of the prison, where the elders and the king's officers, c., might consult him with the greater ease for they continued to inquire, foolishly thinking, that if he would but prophesy good things, that these must come, or that he had sufficient power with God to induce him to alter his mind,-destroy the Chaldeans, and deliver the city.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 20, 22, 24 Jer 33:1. The word of the Lord came unto…
Jer 33:1. The word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time — See note on Jer 32:2. Jeremiah being forced out of the temple, God follows him to the prison, and there reveals his mind to him once and again. The wickedness of the Jews in persecuting the prophet could not make God’s promises of no effect respecting mercy to be shown to the people after the captivity; which promises, though made before, are here confirmed a second time.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 21, 24, 25 The prison - The guard.
The prison - The guard.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 24 Time. Soon after the former. (Calmet) --- He was…
Time. Soon after the former. (Calmet) --- He was comforted in prison by two visions, shewing that the Church should not perish for the sins of many. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 10, 12, 14, 19 Promise of the most glorious future given at a…
II. CHAPTER 33
Promise of the most glorious future given at a moment when the destruction of Jerusalem by its own inhabitants in the interest of defence was already begun
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1. Brief transition: Summons to new prayer in the sense of Jer_32:16-25, and Promise of a Hearing
Jer_33:1-3
1 Moreover the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he
was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying,
2 Thus saith Jehovah, who does it,
Jehovah, who prepares it, to complete it,—Jehovah is His Name,
3 Call upon Me, and I will answer thee,
And will announce to thee great and hidden things that thou knewest not.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The prophet, still in the court of the prison, receives a second time a revelation of an exceedingly comforting character. It is introduced by some words of Jehovah, which set forth His power to carry out his thoughts (Jer_33:2), as well as His readiness to afford the prophet on his request a glimpse into the great facts of the future, which the Lord intends to accomplish, notwithstanding that they are now regarded as impossible (Jer_33:3). Some would consider these words a later addition, because they cannot distinguish Jeremiah’s style in them (Graf). But Graf himself has shown in opposition to Movers and Hitzig that the style of the alleged Isaiah II. is not seen in these verses, that rather the main elements (הֵכִין, קָרָא of calling upon God, יהוה שׁמו) accord well with the style of Jeremiah. I add that יָצַר, in the sense of “forming thoughts,” is found parallel with חשב מחשׁבה in Jer_18:11. The expression עֹשָׂהּ, as far as the meaning of the verb goes, has nothing specific about it, and the neutral signification of the feminine suffix is not foreign to the style of Jer_4:28; Jer_13:17.—On גְּדֹלוֹת, etc., vid. infra.—What might most make the impression of a style differing from that of Jeremiah is this Introduction in itself, and especially the peculiar turn of Jer_33:3 : Call upon me, and I will answer, etc.—But we must here well observe that these words are occasioned by the prayer of the prophet in Jer_32:16-25. The prophet had indeed already received an answer to this prayer in Jer_32:26-44. But he is here admonished to approach the Lord more frequently with such petitions. The God, who has the power to carry out His determinations, is ready and willing to afford him a glance into His great thoughts of the future. A proof of this immediately follows. Consequently the verses, Jer_33:1-3, form a bridge of connection between chh. 32 and 33. In the admonition to pray more frequently they point back to the previous context and prepare by the promise I will announce, etc., for the following disclosures.
Jer_33:1-3. Moreover the word … knewest not.—Who does it. This passage both in the thought and the words reminds us of Isa_46:11.—Jehovah is his name. Comp. Jer_10:16; Jer_31:35; Jer_32:18. In the name of Jehovah lies the guarantee of His action. For what He is called He is.—And I will announce. It might here be asked whether the prophet is promised an insight into the inner connection of the divine arrangements (in the same sense as הִֹגִּיד is used of the solution of riddles, Jdg_14:12-14), or only a view of facts. I believe that the two are to be connected. The innermost grounds of the divine action are a secret to the prophet as to the angels (1Pe_1:11-12). When however the Lord shows the prophet a chain of facts, it can not only be evident to him what will happen, but also how one thing follows from another. This may have taken place in only a limited degree, yet it furnished the prophet with a bridge of connection between the past and the present. Hidden things, בצרות. In Isa_48:6 we read וּנְצֻרוֹת וְלֹא יְדַעְתָּם. The resemblance is unmistakable. The whole connection of the passage renders it incredible that the words in Isaiah are a quotation, they must therefore be so here. The reading here, בְּצֻרוֹת, may be due to a critical error (ב for נ), especially as the word does not occur elsewhere in this altered sense. It is always used elsewhere of walls or cities (Num_13:28; Deu_1:28; Deu_9:1; Jos_14:12, etc.). Meanwhile it is also conceivable that the prophet may have written בְּצֻרוֹת. He frequently modifies the words which he quotes. This might take place the more easily as the related passage, Isa_37:26, may at the same time have hovered before his mind. בְּצֻדוֹת is not in itself inappropriate, as it may signify “secluded, separate, inaccessible.”
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Jer_32:3. “An effect of anger and a procedure almost like that of Ahab with the prophet Micah. The same spirit prevails now-a-days. For without entering on an investigation, with what right or reason men are found who often in pretty general expressions in a call to repentance, borrow from the prophet all sorts of judicial threatening and point to this or that city, we cannot avoid seeing why they are always put in arrest, viz.: for this cause, ‘Why dost thou prophesy what we do not like to hear?’ When one is sure of his cause, a noble disdain of such people would be the best means to use against them. But men cannot bear a bad conscience and threatenings of all sorts together, and the fear that it may be true has the foolish effect, that they cause the bearers of such unpleasant tidings to come to a bad end, in order to affright others from coming with similar messages.” Zinzendorf.
2. On Jer_32:7 sqq. “Fundatur in hoc textu locus classicus de contractibus emtionis et venditionis, quos improbant Anabaptistæ, probat Scriptura, sicut ostendunt hæc quæ jam sequuntur documenta: Pro_31:14; Mat_13:3.”Förster.
3. On Jer_32:15. “The prophet had often enough declared the land lost to the Chaldeans. Here, however, he must testify that it is not lost forever: his purchase was to restore confidence in the future to other troubled souls. Thus the most afflicted servant of God must again be the most hopeful.”—“When we are outwardly prosperous, we think no one can take our prosperity from us, and when trouble comes upon us, we again think that no one can help us. Both courses are, however, equally ungodly. Therefore God’s servants must contradict both those who are at ease, and those who are in despair. The reverse is always right. In good days humble thyself, and in bad days let thyself be exalted, for then it is a great thing to do.” Diedrich.
4. On Jer_32:9; Jer_32:16; Jer_32:24-25. “Jeremiah also contends, but as a servant of the Lord. First he obeys and afterwards speaks about it. This is a noble way, by which every teacher, who knows the Lord, may prove himself. As soon as he observes that the Lord wishes this or that, it is not the time to expostulate, but to act, not to call anything in question, but to set to work. If then any hesitation is left, or one and another scruple, it is time afterwards to consult with the Lord about it, when one has first shown obedience.” Zinzendorf. [“Though we are bound to follow God with an implicit obedience, yet we should endeavor that it may be more and more intelligent obedience. We must never dispute God’s statutes and judgments, but we may and must inquire, What mean these statutes and judgments? Deu_6:20.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
5. On Jer_32:25. Tertullian (c. Marc, L. IV., c. 40) sees in the words “Buy thee the field for money,” the prophetic passage to which Mat_27:9 refers, regarding the reading Ἰερεμίου as correct. Comp. Euseb. Demonstr. Ev., L. X., c. 4; Augustin, De consensu Evang., L. III., c. 7.
6. On Jer_32:27. To God there is no wonder [miracle]. There are wonders only on the lower stage of existence. Every higher stage is a wonder to the lower. Or is there only one stage of existence, and accordingly only one order of nature? When the North American savages cruelly murdered one of their number who had been on a visit to the Great Father in Washington, and told them of the wonders of civilization, as a demoniacally possessed liar, were they less in the right than our highly civilized savages, to whom it is a fundamental axiom, that there is no other world, but that which they can reach with their five senses? It is certainly not proved that there is a living, personal, omnipotent God. But this is not to be proved, it is to be felt from the heart. He who is born of God heareth His voice. To him also miracles cease to be aught irrational. He knows well how to distinguish between true and false miracles, but the former come to him like a voice from the higher world, in which he feels truly at home. For the stages of existence and orders of nature are not hermetically sealed towards each other, but the higher break through in order to lift the lower up to themselves.
7. On Jer_32:36 sqq. On the fulfilment of this prophecy comp. the Comm. on Jer_13:14, and the Doctrinal notes on Jer_3:18-25, No. 8. As the threatening that Israel should be dispersed among all nations from one end of the earth to the other (Deu_28:64-66) has been literally fulfilled, why should not this promise also be literally fulfilled, that they shall be collected from all lands whither the Lord has cast them out? Why cannot this people be destroyed? Why do they retain their peculiarities with such tenacity, that neither the most raging fanaticism, nor the most humane cosmopolitanism, which is much more dangerous than the former, can mingle them with other nations; so that we can follow the course of their national stream through the sea of nations, as it is said of the Rhine that its water flows unmingled through the lake of Constance? Assuredly this people must yet have a future. Only thus much is correct; that the real kernel of these prophecies is offered to us in a shell which the prophets prepared from contemporary events, but it is difficult to determine where the shell ceases and the kernel begins. Comp. Rinck, The Scripturalness of the doctrine of the Millennial reign defended against Hengstenberg. Eberfeld, 1866, S. 45 sqq.
8. On Jer_32:36 sqq. “Is the consummation of the redemptive work possible while Israel is rejected as a nation? According to the Old Testament this question must be unconditionally negatived. This knows only a temporary rejection of Israel, which at the same time has this result, that Israel does not perish as a nation, but is preserved for future restoration. Is this law aunulled since Israel despised the gracious visitation of the Messiah, the kingdom of God taken from them and given to a people which bring forth the fruits thereof? Are thus the predictions of the prophets, which treat of a glorification of Israel in the latter days, eternally abrogated on account of the nation’s sin? Or can their fulfilment be found only in a spiritual manner in the Christian church, the main trunk of which was formed by a chosen few from Israel? These questions are answered in the affirmative by Bertheau (Old Testament prophecy of Israel’s national glory in their own land. Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol., 1859 and 1860) in accordance with the older protestant theology (comp. especially Hollaz, Exam, theolog. ed. Teller, p. 1264 sqq.) as decidedly as according to our conviction they must, on the ground of Rom_1:25 sqq., be negatived. It seems to us to be irrefragably established that when the times of the world-nations are full (Luk_21:24), Israel will obey the gospel call, and thus be prepared to welcome the Messiah (Mat_23:39); that for this reason in its dispersion among the nations of the earth it has never been absorbed by them, but preserved in separate existence for its final destination, because God’s gifts of grace and calling are ἀμεταμέλητα.” Oehler in Herzog, R.-Enc., XVII., S. 658, 9.
9. On Jer_33:3. “This is the Lord’s declaration to His obedient servant Jeremiah. My dear child, He says, thou hast acted according to my will, without knowing why. Thou hast done well. But I will make it clear to thee, so that thou wilt wonder no more; I will tell thee that and yet more, so that thou wilt at last say., ‘Yes, let it be so.’ We find such connections a few times elsewhere in the Scriptures. The Lord says, ‘ How can I hide from Abraham the thing that I do!’ (Gen_18:17.) And the same Lord declares to His disciples, whence comes this inclination or predisposition to tell something new to His disciples, ‘ Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you’ (Joh_15:16). So also is it here with Jeremiah.” Zinzendorf.
10. On Jer_33:6. Healing, restoration, joy and permanent prosperity are promised by the prophet to Jerusalem at a time when all seemed lost, and it seemed impossible to regain them. How desolate must it have then appeared in Jerusalem when one house after another was thrown down to furnish means of defence! How wildly raged the tumult of war, and how comfortless was the condition of the city shut in by the enemy and completely cut off from the rest of the country! To the mind of him, who then thought of Jerusalem in the future, pictures of destruction alone presented themselves. Jeremiah, however, whose sight was sharpened by the divine anointing, sees beyond the present abomination of desolation in the far distant future pictures of peace and, moreover, of everlasting peace, such as no eye has ever seen, nor hath it entered into the heart of man. There was the patience and faith of the saints (Rev_13:10). ‘Impossible’ is a word, which does not occur in God’s language.
11. On Jer_33:8. “After the stubborn race has been partly annihilated and partly humbled, God will turn the captivity of the nation, as a whole. Israel cannot perish eternally. God will purify the people from their sins, by forgiveness, the only way in which men can be really freed from sin. Grace and forgiveness are the only ground on which we stand as Christians. This seems nothing to the world, and yet it is more than heaven and earth.” Diedrich.
12. On Jer_33:7-13. “An important doctrine meets us in these words, that it is not the gifts of God which we should seek to apprehend, but the love of God which is manifested in that He imputes not our sin to us. Otherwise we treat the Divine benefits like the fishes which swallow the hook with the bait.” Heim and Hofmann. The major prophets expounded for edification, 1839, S. 509.
13. On Jer_33:14-17. “All God’s promises are at the same time fulfilled by the true man, the Son of Man, the pure sprout of David. He will be a King, in whom we have perfect protection from all destructive agencies, for He will help us from sin, procuring and executing on earth justice and righteousness for all mankind. As we all together inherited sin and death from Adam, so Jesus by His righteousness has brought justification of life for all men, if we would now only take it with joy. Jerusalem will itself bear the King’s name, as he was called in Jer_23:6 : Jehovah our Righteousness, i. e., that Jehovah bestows on us the righteousness, which is the bond, which at the same time unites us to the citizens of His celestial city.” Diedrich.
14. On Jer_33:15-16. [The Lord our righteousness. “This is to be explained by the union of the Church with Christ (see Rom_12:4-5; 1Co_10:17; 1Co_12:12; Eph_1:22; Eph_4:12; Eph_4:15-16; Eph_4:25; Eph_6:23; Col_1:18; Col_1:24) so that what belongs to Him is communicated to her (Calvin, Piscator, Muenster).—Thus, by virtue of her mystical union with Christ, and by the imputation of His merits, and the infusion of His Spirit, the Name of the Church may be said to be ‘ The Lord our righteousness;’ she hides herself in Him, and is seen by God as in Him; she is clothed with Christ the Sun of righteousness (see Rev_12:1) and is accepted in the Beloved (Eph_1:6).” Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]
15. On Jer_33:17. [“When the First-begotten was brought into the world it was declared concerning Him, The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His Father David, Luk_1:32.” Henry.—S.R. A.]
16. On Jer_33:13-22. [“Four words, each of them full of meaning, comprise the conceptions which we attribute to the Paradisaical state. They are these: Innocence, Love, Rural Life. Piety; and it is towards these conditions of earthly happiness that the human mind reverts, as often as it turns, sickened and disappointed, from the pursuit of whatever else it may have ever labored to acquire. The innocence we here think of is not virtue recovered, that has passed through its season of trial, but it is Moral Perfectness, darkened by no thought or knowledge of the contrary. This Paradisaical love is conjugal fondness, free from sensuous taint. This Rural Life is the constant flow of summer days, spent in gardens and afield, exempt from our exacted toil. This piety of Paradise is the grateful approach of the finite being to the Infinite,—a correspondence that is neither clouded, nor is apprehensive of a cloud.” Isaac Taylor, Spirit of Hebrew Poetry.—S. R. A.]
17. On Jer_33:19-22. [“The richest promises are confirmed by the strongest assurances.” Cowles.—S. R. A.] “As God’s arrangements in nature do not fail, still less can His word fail in His kingdom of grace, and all His word refers to the divine Son of David and His eternal kingdom of grace. Yea, the whole innumerable Israel, Abraham’s spiritual posterity, shall become Davids and Levites, i. e., priests and kings, as was designed even at the beginning of Israel. (Exo_19:6; 1Pe_2:9; Rev_5:6).” Diedrich.
18. On Jer_33:18-22. [Wordsworth rejects Hengstenberg’s explanation that these words are to be applied to all Christians indiscriminately, and approves of the argument derived by the ancient Christian fathers from the passage in favor of the threefold order of ministers in the Christian church. He adds “The Gospel of Christ and the Church of Christ possess the spiritual essence of whatever was commanded in the Levitical dispensations. Whatever was local and personal in those dispensations has passed away. The Tabernacle, the Temple, their Sacrifices, their Sabbaths, their Annual Festivals, their threefold Ministry, all these have been spiritualized in the Gospel. Sinai is perpetuated in Zion. The glory of the Law has been absorbed into that of the Gospel. See Psa_68:17, the great Pentecostal Psalm.”—S. R. A.]
19. On Jer_33:23-26. “In the first place they will not be warned, and afterwards they will not be comforted. The true prophet however announces death to sinners according to the law, but afterwards grace for renovation and for life. Despair is blasphemy. God’s kingdom stands and will be perfected, but the fainthearted will not enter it. God answers: so long as heaven and earth are preserved by Me, it is for the sake of My kingdom, and as a pledge that it will not fail. Israel or, what is the same thing, David’s seed shall be a royal seed, and the captivity which the people must now endure is transient. It is however impossible for the worldly to comprehend this, who persist in carnal repose as though no God could punish them, and again in affliction are so despondent, as though there were no God to help them any more.” Diedrich. [“Deep security commonly ends in deep despair; whereas those that keep up a holy fear at all times have a good hope to support themselves in the worst of times.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jer_32:16. [“Before Jeremiah went to prayer he delivered the deeds that concerned his new purchase to Baruch, which may intimate to us, that when we are going to worship God we should get our minds as clear as may be from the cares and encumbrances of this world.—Note, Prayer is the salve of every sore.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
2. On Jer_32:17-25. The Divine promises our best consolation in every affliction. 1. There are promises of Divine help for every kind of distress in human life. 2. These promises often sound very wonderful (Jer_32:24-25). 3. Their fulfilment on the part of God is guaranteed by the perfection of the Divine nature (Jer_32:17-19). 4. Their fulfilment is on our part conditioned by faith.
3. On Jer_32:18-19. Harvest [Thanksgiving-day] Sermon. “To what should our admiration of the power and grace of God in the present harvest lead us? 1. To thank God. 2. To trust all to Him, that He has promised us. 3. To obey His voice.” Jentsch., Gesetz and Zeugniss, 1853.
4. On Jer_32:19. “The very serious and important truth, the eyes of the Lord are open to all the paths of the children of men. This should 1, shake us and awake us from our security, if some of our ways are sinful and such as the Lord must certainly disapprove; 2, humble us, if we are indeed under the discipline of God’s Spirit, and yet turn to our own self made courses, and have not yet allowed a fixed and sure heart to be imparted to us; 3, be for our comfort and encouragement, when we are often led in dark and difficult paths.” J. M. Mueller, Zeugnisse v. Christo. [Witnesses to Christ]. Neues Predigtbuch., Stuttgart, 1866, S. 757.
5. On Jer_32:19. [“The greatness of God’s wisdom and the abundance of His power. Proved from His nature. Rem. 1. God hath the power of making the deepest affliction of His children produce their highest happiness. 2. The contrivances of tyrants to oppress the church procure its establishment. 3. The triumphs of Satan turn to the destruction of his empire.” Saurin.—S. R. A.]
6. On Jer_32:39. Wedding-sermon, “The promise which the Lord gives to God-fearing couples. 1. One heart. 2. One way. 3. One blessing, which shall extend to their children.” Florey, 1862.
7. On Jer_32:40. Wedding-sermon. The nature and fruit of a true marriage. 1. Its nature: it is a covenant which a man and a woman conclude in the Lord, and with the Lord (put My fear in their hearts;—not depart from Me;—everlasting covenant). 2. Its fruit: good from the Lord without ceasing.
8. On Jer_32:40. [“Teachers may put good things into our heads, but it is God only that can put them into our hearts, that can work in us both to will and to do.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
9. On Jer_32:39-41. “The greatest and dearest of all the promises of God to a marriage in the highest degree happy and delightful.” G. Conr. Rieger.
10. On Jer_32:40-41. Baptismal Sermon. “The gracious promises of God, which He gives to a child of man in holy baptism.” Florey, 1862.
11. On Jer_32:42. “ In communion of suffering of pious Christians is also a blessed fellowship of consolation, since 1, when we as Christians bear with one another, we can also with each other and by each other obtain composure with respect to whatever has befallen us; 2, our heart is revived by what remains, viz., love on earth and hope in heaven; 3, we become strong for whatever duty is laid upon us, viz., labor and courage.” Florey, 1863.
12. On Jer_33:1. [“No confinement can deprive God’s people of His presence; no locks or bars can shut out His gracious visits, nay, oftentimes as their afflictions abound their consolations much more abound, and they have the most reviving communications of His favor then when the world frowns on them. Paul’s sweetest Epistles were those that bare date out of a prison.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
13. On Jer_33:6. “ The disease of our times is no other than a rebellious spirit, and the cause of this is no other than a want of reverence for God and His law.” Discourse on the Birth-day of the king by Deacon Hauber in Tübingen. Palmer, Ev Casualreden, 2te Folge, 1, 1850.
14. On Jer_33:14-16. “Jesus Christ a King. 1. From what a noble royal stock did He proceed! (Raised by God, descending from David, both by His deity and humanity heir of the throne). 2. How well has He exercised His rule with judgment and righteousness (He Himself is the Lord, who is our righteousness). 3. How far does His dominion extend! (From Jerusalem to the ends of the earth). 4. How safely does His people dwell by His help in peace !” Naumann, in Gesetz u. Zeugn., 1860, March.
15. On Jer_33:14-16. “Who is He announced to-day? 1. The long promised—with reference to His historical appearance. 2. The Son of David and at the same time God’s Son—this is His personal significance. 3. The Lord, who is our righteousness—this relates to His holy office and work.” Anacker, in Gesetz u. Zeugn., 1860, March.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26 maker thereof--rather, "the doer of it," namely, that which…
maker thereof--rather, "the doer of it," namely, that which Jeremiah is about to prophesy, the restoration of Israel, an act which is thought now impossible, but which the Almighty will effect.
formed it--namely, Jerusalem (Jer 32:44) [CALVIN]. Rather, "that formed," that is, moulds His purpose into due shape for execution (Isa 37:26).
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Lord . . . his name-- (Exo 3:14-15).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20, 24, 25 The time when this prophecy was spoken must have…
THE HAPPINESS OF THE RETURNING EXILES, 1-14.
THE MESSAGE TO ZEDEKIAH ANNOUNCING THE FUTILITY OF RESISTANCE, 1-7.
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The time when this prophecy was spoken must have been near the beginning of the siege; for —
a. Jeremiah was not in confinement. “Go and speak,” Jer_33:2.
b. Lachish and Azekah were not captured, Jer_33:7.
It would seem then that the first seven verses of this chapter cannot be simply a repetition in a more extended form of Jer_33:3-5 of chap. 32, but should rather be classed with chap. 21, and were intended as a warning to King Zedekiah of the fruitlessness of all attempts to drive away the Chaldeans. The very full and formal introduction in Jer_33:1, and the character of the contents, alike favour this view.
1. While he — Jeremiah.
Was yet shut up — Implying the close connexion of this chapter with the preceding.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25 1. in the court of the guard] See on…
1. in the court of the guard] See on ch. Jer_32:2.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24 (1-3) The second time, while he was yet shut…
XXXIII.
(1-3) The second time, while he was yet shut up.—The discourse that follows belongs to the same period as the preceding chapter, and presents the same general characteristics. Its connexion with the operations of the siege to which Jerusalem was exposed will be traced in Jer_33:4. As with other prophecies, its starting-point is found in the thought of the majesty of the attributes of God.
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Great and mighty things.—The two adjectives occur in the same combination in Deu_1:28; Deu_9:1, and this fact is in favour of the rendering “mighty” rather than “hidden,” as in the margin of the A.V.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24 A chapter of promises, having reference, first, to the…
A chapter of promises, having reference, first, to the people and kingdom in general (vers. 4-13), and then to the royal and priestly offices in particular (vers. 14-26). The first part is but the expansion of passages in the preceding prophecy, to which this chapter is attached by the opening verse. The remaining portion is less closely connected; it is occupied by promises of the perpetual duration of the house of David and of the Levites. It should be noticed by the student that there are difficulties connected with the authorship of vers. 14, 26 (see below).
In the court of the prison; rather, of the guard. (Jer_32:2)
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Vers. 1-3. An invitation to prayer.
I THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE INVITATION. (Ver. 1)
1. It was to Jeremiah; i.e.
(1) to a good man. All men may pray, but it is "the supplication of a righteous man that availeth much in its working"; (Jam_5:16) and
(2) a prophet. Therefore a prophet needs to pray. No man knows so much or is so far advanced spiritually as to be able to dispense with prayer. Christ prayed.
2. The invitation came to Jeremiah in prison. Stone walls cannot shut out God from us, nor prevent our souls from rising in prayer to him. The persecutor cannot rob his victim of his choicest jewel. God often visits the soul in scenes of earthly distress.
3. The invitation came a second time. God repeatedly visits his troubled children. The prayer of yesterday will not make that of today needless.
4. The invitation to prayer did not bring deliverance from trouble. Though God visited Jeremiah in prison once and again, the prophet still remained there. We have no right to think that when God visits us for good he will remove our earthly trouble; he may find it better to bless us in it. Therefore, on the other hand, the continuance of the trouble is no evidence that we are deserted by God perhaps the reverse, because "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.
II THE GROUNDS OF THE INVITATION. (Ver. 2) God gives to Jeremiah good grounds for assurance in prayer before inviting him to pray. We cannot pray to an unknown God with intelligence and earnestness. To pray with faith we must have grounds of confidence. These are offered to the prophet in the manifestation of the nature of God in his works, and the revelation of his higher character in the sacred Name, Jehovah.
1. The manifestation of God in his works.
(1) He is the Maker of all things; therefore he has power to make all right again.
(2) He established the world; therefore there is a permanence in the law, and will, and procedure of God, which no passing accidents can set aside.
2. The revelation of his higher Name, "Jehovah;" "The Lord in his Name." This revelation not only suggests the self-existent and eternal supremacy of God, so infinitely superior to all those evil powers of life feared by us timid mortals; it is also associated with the willingness of God to save, since it was revealed in connection with the deliverance from Egypt, (Exo_3:14) it may well be quoted in anticipation of the deliverance from Babylon.
III THE CHARACTER OF THE INVITATION. (Ver. 3)
1. God invites to prayer. Therefore we may have good assurance that he will hear prayer; and nevertheless, we are reminded that, though he is favourably disposed to us, he waits to bless us until we "call unto" him.
2. God promises a revelation in response to prayer. Here is an encouragement that the prayer will not be fruitless. The Bible does not represent prayer as a mere subjective exercise; it treats it as a power prevailing with God, securing from him blessings asked. We have here a special encouragement for the perplexed to pray for light. Mysteries are not necessarily eternally hidden. Some once hidden have been revealed; (Col_1:26) others may yet be made more clear. The seeker after truth should be a man of prayer. The deepest spiritual truth is not discoverable by speculation; it is revealed in communion. It is seen through spiritual thought and sympathy with God, aided by his Spirit"s inspiration.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR Ver. 1. Cf. Jer_32:1-5 M.
Vers. 1-3. Revelation of God"s purpose to him who performs his will.
Jeremiah had resolutely witnessed to the truth, and now he was confined in the king"s prison in order to his being silenced. But so far from the Divine communications being less frequent, they were more so, and, if possible, more weighty and important. The word of the Lord came to him the second time (ver. 1), and a gracious revelation of God"s power and willingness to bless.
I GOD IS WITH THOSE WHO SUFFER FOR HIS SAKE. It was a token of his love that Jeremiah should receive this assurance, and one which he was most certain to appreciate. Prisoners and martyrs for conscience" sake in all ages of the Church have been similarly consoled. There are special and peculiar consolations for persons so situated. God is nearer then than at other times. His promises are greater and brighter, and his presence more felt. Who would not suffer thus to be thus comforted?
II GOD REQUESTS US TO ASK OF HIM THE THINGS WE MOST DESIRE. Not that there are not circumstances of such a character as to call forth spontaneous proofs of his favour and love. But seeking and asking are exercises of faith, which cannot long be dispensed with in our intercourse with our heavenly Father, even although "he knoweth what things we have need of before we ask him". (Mat_6:8) And this because:
1. The exercises of the soul in prayer and faith are greater benefits in them selves than most things that are to be procured through them.
2. Such exercises are a preparation of the soul for heavenly gifts and communications, and keep it in readiness for them.
3. They are pleasing to God, and gratify his love. The answer is certain, and, indeed, waiting; but he loves to be asked. There is no more endearing position in the sight of God than that of prayer.
III THOSE WHO FAITHFULLY OBEY GOD"S WILL, WILL LEARN SOMETHING OF HIS PURPOSE. Revelations of surpassing magnitude await the prophet in the darkness of his prison house. He did not hesitate to proclaim God s will, and to submit to the consequences of so doing; he is to receive his reward in further disclosures. And these are of the most gracious and consolatory description. But apart from this, the mere communication of the Divine purpose to him was a sign of favour and honour; his truest satisfaction and peace were to be found in hearing God"s voice, and being considered worthy to share the secrets of the Divine future. Man is steward of the present; God retains his hold upon the future, and only discloses it for the reward of faithful men, and for great and merciful ends.
1. Great things, in their scope, character, and influences as belonging to salvation.
2. Secret things (Authorized Version renders this word "mighty"). Not belonging to ordinary experience, but to God"s counsel. M.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20 The Word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the…
Jer_33:1-9
The Word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison.
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A Divine message sent into a prison
I. A true child of God and an honoured prophet in disgrace and affliction (verse 1). Let not the child of God think that his sorrows are always because of his Sins.
II. Though despised of man, the prophet was honoured of God (verses 1, 2).
1. To receive communications from the Divine mind is the highest honour.
2. He whom God honours and owns as His child need not fear what man can do.
III. Divine consolation to an afflicted servant (verse 3).
1. The most precious of all privileges, that of prayer: Call unto Me.
2. The most marvellous of all assurances: And I will answer thee.
3. The most encouraging of all promises: I will show thee great and mighty things.
IV. The adversity and prosperity of nations are under the control of God (verses 4-7).
1. It is impossible properly to construe the history of a nation without reference to the moral government of God.
2. National prosperity or adversity has always been in the line of national virtue or vice.
V. The essential conditions of national as well as individual healing (verses 8, 9).
1. It is essential that God come to do the work. I will cleanse, &c.
2. It is essential that God work upon our moral natures. I will cleanse them from all their iniquity.
3. It is essential that God work upon our moral natures by the assurance of the forgiveness of sin. I will pardon all, &c.
4. This moral and spiritual cleansing and pardon are essential for the appreciation of the Divine goodness: And they shall fear, &c.
5. This spiritual healing shall manifest forth the glory of God: It shall be to Me a name, &c. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
The method of Divine procedure
The prophet, when the Word of the Lord came unto him, was in a good hearing place, shut up in the court of the prison. Shut up unjustly, it was no prison to him, but a sanctuary, with Gods altar visibly in it, and God Himself irradiating the altar with a light above the brightness of the sun. How hardly shall they that have riches hear the Gospel. Their ears are already filled; their attention is already occupied. What keen ears poverty has I What eyes the blind man has!--inner eyes, eyes of expectation. We should have had no world worth living in but for the prison, the darkness, the trouble, the blindness, the sorrow, which have constituted such precious elements in our lot. There would have been no poetry written if there had been no sorrow. Jeremiah heard more in the prison than he ever heard in the palace. God knows where His children are. There are a thousand prisons in life. We must not narrow words into their lowest meanings, but enlarge them into their broadest significance, He is in prison who is in trouble, who is in fear, who is in conscious penitence, without having received the complete assurance of pardon; he is in prison who has sold his liberty, is lying under condemnation, secret or open; and he is in prison who has lost his first love, his early enthusiasm that was loaded with dew like a flower in the morning. Whatever our prison is, God knows it, can find us, can send a word of His own directly to us, and can make us forget outward circumstances in inward content and peace and joy. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—This chapter is in date and…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—This chapter is in date and subject essentially linked to chapter 32. For Notes, therefore, see previous chapter.
Literary Criticisms.—Jer_33:3. “MIGHTY THINGS:” altering ב into נ, making the word נְצֻרוֹת, the better statement, “hidden things which thou knowest not,” is gained, and this is probably the correct reading. Or retaining the word בְצֻרוֹת unaltered, which means fortified, it may be understood as impenetrable things, inaccessible things, and hence “secret things which thou knowest not.”
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Jer_33:4. “HOUSES WHICH ARE THROWN DOWN BY THE MOUNTS:” or against the mounts; for in sieges the enemy, as he encroached upon the city, pulled down houses as materials for his inner fortifications. “AND BY THE SWORD;” rather axes, so rendered in Isa_22:10.
Jer_33:5. “THEY COME TO FIGHT.” The only nominative seems “the houses” of Jer_33:4. But this is meaningless; so that for “they” we must read “the Jews.” Probably the ending of Jer_33:4 might be joined to the beginning of Jer_33:5, and read thus: “And by the sword they [the Jews understood, or “the kings of Judah” mentioned in Jer_33:4] come to fight with the Chaldeans.”
Jer_33:6. “I will bring IT health and cure,” i.e. the city; “and will cure THEM,” i.e. the people. Lit. “I will place upon it a bandage (chap. Jer_8:22, Jer_30:17) and healing:” a healing bandage.
Jer_33:16. “She shall be called THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS,” For explanation of this feminine reference of Messiah’s name, see Critical Note, following Homilies on the verse.
Jer_33:14-26. This section is entirely omitted in the LXX., hence some of the German critics, such as Michaelis, Hitzig, and Movers (opposed, however, by Graf and Ewald), have treated this section as an addition by a later writer, the constantly imagined second Isaiah.
SURVEY OF CHAPTER 33
I. While Jerusalem’s ruin is actually occurring, its “houses” being demolished by the Chaldean engines of war (Jer_33:4),
II. God promises its rebuilding (Jer_33:6), so as to become “a name of joy” (Jer_33:9); and assures to its inhabitants future prosperity and peace (Jer_33:9-14).
III. In Messiah’s advent (Jer_33:15) shall Israel’s future blessedness (Jer_33:16) be culminated; and
IV. In the perpetuity of Christ’s spiritual reign (Jer_33:17-26) the sacred privileges “covenanted” to Israel shall be ceaselessly and universally enjoyed.
HOMILIES AND OUTLINES ON CHAPTER 33
Jer_33:1-9. Theme: A DIVINE MESSAGE SENT INTO A PRISON. There are four or five most fertile suggestions which arise from these verses—
I. A true child of God and an honoured prophet in disgrace and affliction (Jer_33:1).
Jeremiah’s affliction came upon him because of his fidelity to God.
Let not the child of God think that his sorrows are always because of his sins. “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” &c.
II. Though despised of man, the prophet was honoured of God (Jer_33:1-2).
1. To receive communications from the Divine mind is the highest honour.
2. He whom God honours and owns as His child need not fear what man can do.
III. Divine consolation to an afflicted servant (Jer_33:3).
1. The most precious of all privileges, that of prayer: “Call unto Me.”
2. The most marvellous of all assurances: “And I will answer thee.”
3. The most encouraging of all promises: “I will … show thee great and mighty things.”
IV. The adversity and prosperity of nations are under the control of God (Jer_33:4-7).
1. It is impossible properly to construe the history of a nation without reference to the moral government of God.
2. National prosperity or adversity has always been in the line of national virtue or vice.
V. The essential conditions of national as well as individual healing (Jer_33:8-9).
1. It is essential that God come to do the work. “I will cleanse,” &c.
2. It is essential that God work upon our moral natures. “I will cleanse them from all their iniquity.”
3. It is essential that God work upon our moral natures by the assurance of the forgiveness of sin. “I will pardon all,” &c.
4. This moral and spiritual cleansing and pardon are essential for the appreciation of the Divine goodness: “And they shall fear,” &c.
5. This spiritual healing shall manifest forth the glory of God: “It shall be to Me a name,” &c.—Rev. D. C. Hughes.
Jer_33:3. Theme: PRAYER BY GOD’S AFFLICTED SERVANT ENCOURAGED BY GRACIOUS ASSURANCES. “Call unto Me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”
The most eminent men have been found in the school of affliction: David, Jeremiah, &c.
I. The privilege encouraged, “Call unto Me.”
II. The season specified, “While in the court of the prison.”
III. The assurance given, “I will answer thee.”
I. The privilege encouraged, “Call unto Me.” The importance of this appears—
1. From the gracious condescension that enjoins it. God says, “Call unto Me,” not for His own sake, but for ours. Not so much the injunction of duty, as the revelation of privilege.
God would have the intercourse between earth and heaven continually kept up and renewed, because of the benefit that accrues to the Church from this exercise. If we had no sins to be pardoned, no wants to be supplied, enemies to be subdued; if we were as sinless as the first Adam and as all-sufficient as the Second, it would still be our highest duty and privilege to “call upon God,” and to keep up an unbroken intercourse between earth and heaven.
2. From the examples that encourage it. The conduct of our Lord, who, though He received not the Spirit by measure, but held the worlds of nature and of grace at His own command, yet continued all night in prayer to God. He knew prayer prospers all, and He would undertake nothing without prayer. When about to enter upon His public ministry by baptism, we are told, As Jesus “was praying the heavens opened, and the Holy Ghost descended on Him, with this voice, Thou art My beloved Son.” When He would commission and send forth His disciples to preach His Gospel, He first sets His disciples praying, “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest;” and He Himself went out into a mountain to pray (Mat_9:38; Luk_6:12). And when He was to engage in His last encounter with the prince of this world, “He prayed the more earnestly, with strong cryings and tears, to Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared,” so that He won the field, though, like Sampson, he lost His life—the spoils of which glorious victory the Church shall divide and enjoy to all eternity.
3. From the endless misery that must ensue without it. If Paul says, “Pray without ceasing,” what must be the danger of those who never pray? A prayerless heart may be considered as a defenceless citadel lying open and exposed to every foe. Whereas the heart of one truly devout is like a castle in which the Lord dwells, and which is garrisoned with the Divine presence.
II. The suitableness of prayer in times of trial; for it was “while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison.”
He who bore the burden of our sins is ready to bear the burden of our sorrows. Care is a burden; but that may be cast on God.
Though shut out from communion with men, he was not shut out from communion with God.
Prayer is the privilege of all times. We need it in prosperity to prevent our table from becoming our trap and our snare; but it is our special relief in adversity. James says, “Is any afflicted? let him pray.” Men have great need for prayer, then, when trial abounds, when temptations multiply, and when the energies of the mind are unequal to the vicissitudes of life. We should pray for support under them, for improvement by them, and for deliverance from them.
1. For support under them.
Paul, when he was buffeted by Satan, besought the Lord thrice, and obtained the relief he most needed, “My grace shall be sufficient for thee.”
Moses promised the Israelites, “The eternal God is thy Refuge,” &c.
2. For improvement by them, that they may now, or afterwards, “yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby.”
Affliction is often an instrument of improvement, but it requires grace to make it so; and prayer is the appointed means of drawing down the blessing.
Some are hardened by affliction and separated farther from God; some are softened by affliction and thus made more like Him. These, “by the sadness of the countenance, find the heart made better.” This, however, does not arise from the necessary and independent nature of adversity, but from the kindly and sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit of God. Pharaoh hardened himself more and more under the plagues of Egypt till He was finally given over to a reprobate mind. Job was made more humble and holy by his calamities because God was with him through them.
Pray for gracious influences under humbling trials.
3. For deliverance from them. Jeremiah did not die in the prison, but was brought out of it. He always remembered the Divine communion he enjoyed there.
III. The promise annexed—
1. Of a gracious audience. “I will answer thee.”
God always hears, though He does not instantly answer. He heard and answered Jeremiah, though He did not immediately release him from the dungeon.
We often think that our prayers are not heard because they are not answered in the time and the way that we should prefer and expect. Yet the prayer is really answered if there be a gradual preparation of events for our benefit, and a gradual preparation of our hearts and minds to bear and do God’s holy will. If we pray against unbelief, the prayer is answered if our faith is silently strengthened. If we pray for patience, the prayer is answered if we are kept from sinking into despair under the trouble. If we pray for holiness, the prayer is answered when we are enabled to “resist even to blood, striving against sin.” If we pray for deliverance from trouble, the prayer is answered by God’s raising up friends who may support and comfort us, and finally be the means of our security and our rescue.
2. Of special Divine illumination. “I will show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Hidden things.
The school of the cross is the school of light. God shows His people great and mighty things concerning Himself, “the secret of the Lord;” concerning the interests of the Church; concerning the kingdom of Christ (Jer_33:14-16).—S. Thodey, 1849.
Jer_33:3. Theme: PRAYER ENCOURAGED. Such words must have been as a gleam of light shining through the bars of the prophet’s dungeon.
I. The invitation to prayer. “Call upon Me.”
1. Whence came the invitation? “The word of the Lord came” (Jer_33:1). His voice it is we hear inviting us, “The Lord” (Jer_33:2). How should every ear be attentive when Jehovah speaks and bids His creatures “call,” &c.!
2. To whom does He address these words? A lonely prophet, in his solitary dungeon. And it is to all who are “prisoners of hope” this invitation is given.
3. Observe the single Object of our worship. “Call upon Me.” Vain is all other refuge, insufficient all other sources of consolation.
4. But when may we call on God? There is no limit as to time, or circumstance, or state of mind we are in.
5. The manner in which we should pray. “Call upon” denotes earnestness, fervency, perseverance. If our petitions breathe the spirit of earnest supplication, if they are the language of want, sorrow, sin, or of devout adoration and thanksgiving, they are equally acceptable.
6. He who asks us to pray has promised His grace to teach us how to pray (Rom_8:26).
II. Exceeding precious encouragements annexed to the invitation.
1. The promise is as general and unlimited as the invitation. “I will answer thee.” Nothing said as to the mode, time, or place.
(a.) Sometimes “before they call,” &c. (Isa_45:24), as in Act_12:5.
(b.) Sometimes He “makes as though He heard not,” though they knock. Temporary denial adds zeal to the suppliant, and sweetens the blessing when it is vouchsafed.
(c.) Sometimes in a manner wholly different from our expectations. Thus Paul “besought the Lord thrice” for the thorn to be removed, but God answered by making “grace sufficient.” We ask deliverance from trials, &c., but God opens only “a way of escape that we may be able to bear it.” We pray for spirituality, to be weaned from the world, and “He takes away the desire of our eyes with a stroke.”
2. But the assurances here go beyond simple answer to prayer. “I will show thee great and mighty things,” &c. Some of these are enumerated in the following verses, and clearly point to spiritual blessings and to Christ Himself.
1. Healing from the wounds of the enemy (Jer_33:6). He is the great Physician.
2. Liberty from the bondage of sin (Jer_33:7).
3. Entire purification and justification (Jer_33:8).
4. The wonders of redeeming grace and love (Jer_33:14), &c.
Notably is promised here STILL FURTHER AND FULLER REVELATION, AND DEEPER EXPERIENCE OF DIVINE THINGS. “I will show thee,” &c.
(a.) So that, whatever has been already enjoyed, there are more glorious and delightful things to be attained (Joh_1:50). New wonders shall meet the eye of faith; more “abundant peace” (Jer_33:6) shall fill the heart, &c.
(b.) If it is not so—and alas! many believers decline, in their experience and privilege, instead of advancing, crying, “Oh that it were with me as in times past!”—it is because they do not maintain earnest prayer. “Call upon Me, and I will show,” &c.
(c.) How many great and gracious things the Lord is waiting to reveal to us! Blessed they who “go from strength to strength,” who “follow on to know the Lord.”
Let us all examine ourselves—
i. Not to “call upon God” is to forfeit the name of Christian. The Apostle uses the descriptive phrase of believers, as “those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord.” To live without prayer is to live without Christ and without hope.
ii. Let those who profess to cultivate the duty of prayer consider well the character of their devotions. The prayers of many are lamentably cold, formal, and unbelieving. Hence these blessings here assured are so rarely enjoyed.—Anonymous MS., dated A. D. 1836.
Jer_33:3. Theme: THE GOLDEN KEY OF PRAYER. God’s people have always in their worst conditions found out the best of their God.
Rutherford has a quaint saying, that “when he was cast into the cellars of affliction, he always remembered that the great King kept His wine there, and he at once searched for the wine-bottles and drank ‘wines on the lees well refined.’ ”
Those who dive into the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.
I. Prayer commanded.
1. This is great condescension. So great is the infatuation of man on the one hand, which makes him need a command to be merciful to his own soul, and so marvellous the condescension of God on the other that He issues a command of love.
2. Our hearts so despond over our unfitness and guilt, that but for the command we might fear to approach.
3. It is remarkable how much more frequently God calls us to Him in Scripture than we find there our sinfulness denounced!
4. Nor by the commands of the Bible alone are we summoned to prayer, but by the motions of His Holy Spirit.
II. An answer promised.
1. God’s very nature, as revealed in Jesus Christ, assures us that He will accept us in prayer.
2. Our own experience leads us to believe that God will answer prayer; e.g., the conversion of many a child has been an answer to parents’ pleadings with God.
3. Yet God does not always give the thing we ask.
Lord Bolingbroke said to the Countess of Huntingdon, “I cannot understand, your ladyship, how you can make out earnest prayer to be consistent with submission to the Divine will.”
“My lord,” she said, “that is a matter of no difficulty. If I were a courtier of some generous king, and he gave me permission to ask any favour I pleased of him, I should be sure to put it thus: ‘Will your majesty be graciously pleased to grant me such and such a favour; but at the same time, though I much desire it, if it would in any way detract from your majesty’s honour, or if in your majesty’s judgment it should seem better that I did not have this favour, I shall be quite as content to go without it as to receive it.’ So you see I might earnestly offer a petition, and yet might submissively leave it with the king.”
III. Encouragement to faith. “I will show,” &c.
1. Promised to God’s prophet, this specially applies to every teacher. The best way for a teacher or learner in Divine truth to reach the “deeper things of God” is to be much in prayer. How did Daniel find out Nebuchadnezzar’s dream? Set himself to prayer. When John saw the book was sealed, “he wept much,” and those tears were his liquid prayers; then “the Lion of the tribe of Judah opened the book.”
Luther says, “Bene orare est bene studuisse”—To have prayed well is to have studied well.
2. The saint may expect to discover deeper experience and to know more of the higher spiritual life, by being much in prayer; e.g., Jacob wrestling for the blessing and name.
3. It is certainly true of the sufferer under trial; if he waits on God he shall have greater deliverance than he ever dreamed of (Lam_3:57).
4. Here is encouragement for the worker. We know not how much capacity for usefulness there is in us. More prayer will show us more power.
5. This should cheer us in intercession for others. “The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.”
6. Some are seekers for your own conversion. Pray, and see if God will not “show you great and mighty things.”—C. H. Spurgeon, A.D. 1865.
Jer_33:3. Theme: TRUTHS GREAT AND MIGHTY. We know but in part. Without Divine teaching we should have known nothing essentially “great.” Suppose God had taught us nothing by revelation or inspiration, we should have known nothing which relates to our highest interests.
I. By His Word God has already shown us great and mighty things which we knew not and could not have known: incarnation, redemption, regeneration, resurrection, and man’s final destiny.
II. Yet though these great and mighty things are known, they have not been “shown” to men in their reality and supreme importance.
But when God, who brought light out of darkness, shines into the dark mind, that mind sees “the great and mighty” truths. The Spirit’s teaching differs from the teaching of revelation in this—giving to the mind a due appreciation of the truths revealed.
III. Scientific truths are what they are whether man understands them or not; but, till instructed, men understand not their value. So the truths of revelation are what they are; but, till men are enlightened by the Divine Spirit, they are not understood in their essential greatness and importance.
The Spirit “takes the things of Christ and reveals them” unto us—such things as “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,” &c.
IV. In value, importance, and results they infinitely transcend all other things.
What have the “great and mighty” truths of science and philosophy done for the world or for man, compared with the greater and mightier truths of the Gospel? Have they answered the question, “What must I do to be saved?” healed a broken heart; led men to contentment with their lot; taught them how to live or die?
V. Yet, there are greater and mightier truths to be known, even by us who have sat at Jesus’ feet and learned of Him. There are yet “deep things of God” which are to us unknown. If there are mysteries which “angels desire to look into;” so there are things our feeble minds cannot comprehend and our partially sanctified hearts cannot understand.
VI. The deeper our consciousness of this fact, the greater will be our desire for more light. To obtain which there must be fervent, earnest prayer. “Call upon Me,” &c.
And also a holy walking with God. “He gives to the man that is good in His sight, wisdom, and knowledge, and joy.”
Thus, to the prayerful and holy, God makes revelations of “great and mighty things,” of which men of greater talent and higher culture are left in ignorance. “Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”
VII. That is a poor philosophy which leaves men unacquainted with those “great and mighty things” essential to their eternal welfare; which leaves them to grope on in darkness through life’s pathway, and then to die and perish in their sins.
That is the true philosophy which “brings life and immortality to light,” and then leads the soul on to the full realisation of bliss when the shadows of time have passed away.
Does any man lack this wisdom? “Let him ask of God,” &c.
Many mistake mere knowledge for this “wisdom which is from above.” Learning may prevail, knowledge may abound, wit may be common, but
“Wisdom is rare, Lorenzo.”
But it belongs to them who are “taught of God,” and “learn of Jesus.”—Rev. D. Pledge, “Walks with Jeremiah.”
Jer_33:6. Theme: THE GOSPEL A SURE REMEDY. A promise to the unhappy nation of the Jews of blessings yet in store for them. Let us apply the passage for our own edification—as containing a beautiful representation of the Lord’s dealings with the souls whom He redeems. Three stages of His gracious operations as the Great Physician—
I. He visits His poor patients with an all-sufficient remedy in His hand.
II. Applies that remedy. Not only “brought near,” but applied.
III. Confers great blessings in consequence on the healed ones. “Abundance of peace and truth.”
(1.) Privileges of the redeemed sinner: “peace” with God; “truth” of His grace, His covenant, His promises.
(2.) Character acquired by the redeemed sinner in consequence of his faith: a peaceful spirit; walking in the truth. “An Israelite in whom is no guile.”
Have you sought healing?—Rev. Arthur Roberts, M.A., “Village Sermons,” vol. ii.
Jer_33:6-9. Theme: ISRAEL INGATHERED—A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE TO GOD AND MAN. “I will cause the captivity of Israel and Judah to return,” &c.
This passage has never yet been fulfilled; not only because the ten tribes of Israel have not been combined with Judah, but because the effects here announced of that event were never produced by their return from Babylon; for the nations of the earth have never been made to “fear and tremble” by reason of the goodness and prosperity of the Jewish nation.
I. The event predicted. God promises them here—
1. A discovery of His will. In their whole civil and ecclesiastical condition they are “sick,” &c. (Isa_1:5-6). But God will “restore health,” &c. They are in “blindness” and “ignorance,” but God will “reveal unto them abundance of peace and truth.”
2. A manifestation of His favour. “Will build them as at the first” (Jer_33:7, also in Jer_33:11). All shall be renewed to them with tenfold advantage (chap. Jer_30:18; Jer_30:20).
3. A communication of His grace. Sins cleansed (Jer_33:8); iniquities cast to oblivion (Mic_7:19; Jer_50:20); renewed natures (Eze_36:24-27).
II. The vast importance of this event. If we contemplate only the happiness of that people, the temporal, spiritual, and eternal happiness of those living and those yet to live, how important the event here predicted! But, limiting attention to the text, mark—
1. The interest God Himself has in it. “It shall be to Me a name of joy,” &c. (Jer_33:9). Comp. also Isa_65:18-19; Zep_3:17; and Isa_62:4-5.
It will also greatly honour God. He is glorified in His works of creation; but how much more when “all the nations of the earth shall hear” (Jer_33:9) of God’s recovery of His people—it shall be “a praise and an honour.” Comp. Isa_60:20-21; Isa_61:1-3; Isa_62:3.
2. The interest of the whole world involved in it. At this wonderful sight will “all the nations of the earth fear and tremble.” At their rescue from Egypt, a somewhat similar effect was produced (Exo_15:15-16); and the like terror shall be created then (Mic_7:15-17).
But others will regard the event with a grateful awe, “will fear and tremble for all the goodness and prosperity that God hath procured unto His people.”
Indeed this shall incite beholders to conviction and faith (Zec_8:23). To this Paul alludes: “If the fall,” &c., “what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” (Rom_11:12; Rom_11:15.)—Chas. Simeon, M.A., A.D. 1828.
On Jer_33:10-11. DESOLATION OF JOY; JOY RESTORED; see Homilies, &c. on chap. Jer_7:34; Jer_16:9; Jer_25:10-11; and also Jer_17:26.
“Praise the Lord of Hosts; for the Lord is good; for His mercy endureth for ever.”
It was the customary form of liturgical thanksgiving (Psa_106:1; 2Ch_5:13; 2Ch_7:3; 2Ch_7:6).
They were actually used by the Jews at their restoration (Ezr_3:11).
On Jer_33:12-13. Imagery of Shepherds and their Flocks, see on chap. Jer_31:24.
On the words in Jer_33:13, “The flocks pass again UNDER THE HANDS OF HIM THAT TELLETH THEM,” see Milton’s line in L’Allegro—
“While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o’er the furrowed land;
And the milkmaid singeth blithe;
And the mower whets his scythe;
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale—”
i.e., counts the number of the sheep he has in charge, so the Good Shepherd “calleth all His sheep by name” (Joh_10:3). And in 3Jn_1:14, the Apostle says, “Greet the friends by name.”
On Jer_33:14. “The good thing I have promised;” see chap. Jer_23:5; Jer_29:10.
Jer_33:15. Theme: THE BRANCH OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. This verse is the exact repetition of chap. Jer_23:5. See Homilies on that verse, pp. 442, 443, 444: “The Kingdom of the Messiah;” “The Nature and Prosperity of Messiah’s Reign.”
Jer_33:16. Theme: A BRIGHT ERA FOR MANKIND. “In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.”
Same words in chap. Jer_23:6. See Homily there.
Theme: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. See Homily on chap. Jer_23:6; also, “Christ’s Supreme Name;” “The Christian Creed Summarised;” and
“Jehovah Justitia Nostra,” pp. 444–448.
See specially sermon on Sections 1–8 of chap. 23.
JUDAH’S RESTORATION UNDER JEHOVAH TSIDKENU, pp. 438, 439, by Robert Gordon, D.D., and Noticeable Topic: JESUS OUR LORD AND RIGHTEOUSNESS, by Bishop Reginald Heber, pp. 458, 459.
Jer_33:14-16. Theme: JESUS CHRIST AS KING.
I. From what a noble royal stock did He proceed! Raised by God; descended from David; both by His Deity and His humanity heir to the throne.
II. How well has he exercised His rule! “With judgment and righteousness.” He Himself is “The Lord our Righteousness.”
III. How widely does His dominion extend! From Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
IV. How safely does His people dwell! Kept by Him in security and peace.—Naumann, in Lange.
Jer_33:16. Theme: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Deep-wounding—from views of Christ pierced by our sins, precedes deep peace—from views of His righteousness. Originally spoken to Judah and Israel.
I. It is the sight of a Divine righteousness. Jehovah has made the atonement.
II. It is a living righteousness. Jehovah is the righteousness. A living One gives it. He is exalted to give it. He comes to you with the offer of it.
III. It is an appropriated righteousness. “Our.” It would not give me peace to see the whole world clothed in Christ, if I were not! No delight to me except I am sitting under His shade myself—under the rock.
The joy of Paul was, “Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,” &c.; of Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”
APPLICATION—
1. The rest of a believer consists in knowing that Jehovah is his righteousness.
2. The folly of those who rest in seeking is evident—“ever learning, yet never coming,” &c.
3. We see the misery of unbelievers. There is a glorious Divine righteousness that would make the blackest fair.
It will be your eternal torment, that so glorious a righteousness was offered you, and you died without it.—R. Murray M‘Cheyne, 1844.
CRITICAL NOTE (Jer_33:16). “SHE shall be called The Lord our Righteousness.” In Jer_23:6, the name, “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS,” is given to Christ; it is “the name whereby He shall be called.” In this verse the name is given to her, לָהּ., i.e., to Jerusalem.
Henderson alters לָהּ to להֹ, a not uncommon masculine form in the Hebrew; and reads the verse “whereby He shall be called” (as in chap. Jer_23:6). And the Syriac and Targum point לּה as a masculine; the Vulgate also has “eum.”
But Wordsworth, retaining the feminine, comments thus: “This is to be explained by the union of the Church with Christ (see Rom_12:4-5; 1Co_10:17; 1Co_12:12; Eph_1:22; Eph_4:12; Eph_4:15-16; Eph_4:25; Eph_6:23-24; Col_1:18; Col_1:24); so that what belongs to Him is communicated to her. (So Calvin and others.) Thus, by virtue of her mystical union with Christ, and by the importation of His merits and the infusion of His Spirit, the name of the Church may be said to be ‘The Lord our Righteousness;’ she hides herself in Him, and is seen by God as in Him; she is clothed with Christ the Sun of Righteousness (see Rev_12:1), and is accepted in the Beloved (Eph_1:6).”
Dr. Payne Smith says: The name “is here given to Jerusalem, i.e., to the Church, because it is her business mediately to work on earth that righteousness which Christ works absolutely. The Church justifies men only because its ordinances bring men to Christ.” Comp. Eph_1:23.
Jamieson remarks: “Jerusalem is called by the same name as Messiah, by virtue of the mystical oneness between her (as the literal representative of the spiritual Church), and her Lord and Husband. Thus, whatever belongs to the Head belongs also to the members (Eph_5:30; Eph_5:32). Hence the Church is called ‘Christ’ (Rom_16:7; 1Co_12:12). The Church hereby professes to draw all her righteousness from Christ (Isa_45:24-25). It is for the sake of Jerusalem, literal and spiritual, that God the Father gave this name (Jehovah Tsidkenu) to Christ.”
Jer_33:17-18. Theme: PERPETUITY OF DAVID’S REIGN AND OF THE LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD. The literal sense of these words is, that there shall be an absolute perpetuity of the Davidic and Levitical succession. These words accord with 2Sa_7:16; 1Ki_2:4; Psa_89:4; Psa_89:29; Psa_89:36; Num_25:12. But—
I. Historic events refuted the literal interpretation.
1. As to David. No lineal descendant of David occupied the Jewish throne after Zedekiah, “the Asmonæan princes being of the tribe of Levi, while Herod was not a Jew at all but an Idumæan.”—Henderson.
2. As to the Levitical priesthood. Although after the captivity the Levitical priesthood attained great power for a time, indeed until the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, yet since then it has absolutely ceased.
II. Prophecy itself foretold their literal cessation. Indeed Jeremiah himself thus announced their failure—
1. As to the Davidic kingdom (Jer_22:30; Jer_30:21).
2. As to the Levitical priesthood (Jer_3:16; Jer_31:33).
III. Their literal fulfilment cannot be associated with the future restoration of the Jews to Palestine. The Davidic reign and Levitical priesthood cannot then be restored. For—
1. Their genealogical tables have been irrecoverably lost.
2. Nothing short of a miracle would be required to distinguish then between who are descendants of David and who those of Levi.—Henderson.
IV. New Testament teaching declares the absolute supercession and substitution of the spiritual for the literal royalty and priesthood. Its teachings are that—
1. No king of the family of David shall reign but the Messiah; and the seat of His government is not an earthly, but a heavenly throne (Luk_1:32-33).
2. The Levitical services have been for ever abrogated by the unchanging and unceasing priesthood of Christ (Heb_7:12-28).
V. What explanations remove the seeming error of these predictions?
1. The Davidic kingship and Levitical priesthood are symbols, which represented to the Jew all that was most dear to his heart in the state of things under which he lived—his national existence and freedom from foreign oppression (which was bound up in the thought of David’s perpetual kingdom), and his religious privileges and hopes (associated inseparably with the perpetuity of the Levitical ministries). Their restoration was therefore synonymous with the restoration of his national and spiritual life. But neither was so restored as to exist permanently. But that was given instead of which both were types: the CHURCH, whose Head is the true Prophet, Priest, and King.—Dr. Payne Smith.
2. The spiritual interpretation: its application to the MESSIAH in His regal and sacerdotal offices. The throne of David is the spiritual throne, which, as his descendant, Messiah is to fill for ever (Isa_9:6; Luk_1:32-33). And as David’s reign is thus carried forward spiritually, so the Levites may be said never to “want a man” to present sacrifices, inasmuch as “the man Christ Jesus” “ever liveth” to present the merits of His own sacrifice.—Henderson.
3. These pledges of perpetuity find their fulfilment in the royalty and priesthood of all Christian souls; called a “royal priesthood” (1Pe_2:5-9); “kings and priests unto God” (Rev_1:6; Rev_5:10); “priests of God and of Christ, who shall reign” (Rev_20:6).—Hengstenburg.
4. Interpreting the promised perpetuity of the Levitical priesthood, Bishop Wordsworth, following Lowth, urges that the ministry of the Christian Church is the complete realisation of all that was done in the offices of the high priests, the priests, and the Levites in the Tabernacle and the Temple. So that the promise here that the Levites will never want a man to stand before God to execute priestly functions, is a declaration that “there shall never fail a succession of men set apart to God’s service to perform the public offices of religion.” Accordingly, Paul proves the rights and privileges belonging to the ministers of the Gospel from the prerogatives given to the Jewish priesthood (1Co_9:13-14). And Trapp interprets it as meaning “the continuance of an evangelical ministry in the Church to the world’s end” (Mat_28:20; Eph_4:11-13).
5. In proof that these predictions were to have no mere Jewish fulfilment, but point to a dispensation in which national distinctions disappear amid spiritual qualifications and experiences, we have the definite promise that Gentiles are to become priests and Levites. For in the call of the Gentiles there shall be some among them ordained to be ministers in Christ’s Church: “I will also take of them for priests and for Levites” (Isa_66:21; see also Isa_56:7, Isa_61:6; Mal_1:11; Mal_3:3).
Jer_33:20-22. Theme: GREAT PROMISES GRANDLY GUARANTEED. “The unchangeableness of God’s laws in nature is the pledge that His promises in grace are equally immutable.”—Dr. Payne Smith.
“The richest promises are confirmed by the strongest assurances.”—Cowles.
“God has hitherto kept promise with nights and days that one shall succeed the other; and will He not keep touch with His people?”—Trapp.
Jer_33:24-26. Theme: SPEAKING CONTEMPTUOUSLY OF GOD’S PEOPLE.
These “two families” are either Israel and Judah; or else “the seed of Jacob” (Jer_33:26) to whom the birthright was given, and the seed of “David” (Jer_33:26) to whom the promise was subsequently confirmed, that of him the Messiah should spring.
Who were they who spake thus of God’s people? Either the Chaldeans without the walls, or the unbelieving Jews within.
I. The utterance of defiance and scorn if from the Chaldeans. They spoke contemptuously of the Hebrews as being abandoned by their God. Implying on the part of Israel’s foes—
1. Exultation over the rejection of God’s people from His care and favour. “Aha, so would we have it!”
2. Execration, expressing their purpose to destroy them. “If it had not been that the Lord was on our side, when men rose up against us, then had they swallowed us up quick.”
3. Contempt. They despised them as a forlorn, friendless, feeble folk. So Sennacherib: “What do these feeble Jews?”
II. The utterance of desolate despair by the Jews themselves. They spoke depreciatingly of themselves and their prospects. Implying on Israel’s part that they were—
1. Paralysed by nearing disaster. The Chaldeans were encroaching on the city; capture was inevitable.
2. Abandonment of all hope in God. He had, as they supposed, now rejected Judah, as already He had Israel.
3. Depreciation of themselves in their relation to God as His covenant people, judging that their national existence was now well-nigh closed.
Notes—
DIEDRICH comments: “In the first instance they would not be warned; now they will not be comforted. The true prophet, however, announces death to sinners according to the law, but afterwards grace for renovation and for life.
Despair is blasphemy. God’s kingdom stands and will be perfected, but the faint-hearted will not enter it.
God answers, So long as heaven and earth are preserved by Me, it is for the sake of My kingdom, and as a pledge that it will not fail. Israel, or, what is the same thing, David’s seed, shall be a royal seed, and the captivity which the people must now endure is transient. It is impossible, however, for the worldly to understand this, who perish in carnal repose as though no God could punish them; and, again, in affliction are so despondent as though there were no God to help them any more.”
HENRY remarks: “Deep security commonly ends in deep despair; whereas those that keep up a holy fear at all times have a good hope to support them in the worst of times.”
“This is (Jer_33:26) a complex promise,” says Trapp, “and better than money which answereth all things.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. Jehovah, our God, has access to us everywhere.
Jer 33:3
I. Jehovah, our God, has access to us everywhere.
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II. Jehovah, our God, can speak to us whenever He pleases, and He does speak to us.
III. God wills to be prayed unto; to be asked to give that which we desire and need.
IV. God pledges Himself to answer prayer.
V. God promises to exceed all we can ask or think.
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 161.
References: Jer 33:3.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 154; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 619; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 253; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 282. Jer 33:9.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1636. Jer 35:5, Jer 35:6.—F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x.. p. 257. Jer 35:6, Jer 35:19.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 275. Jer 35:14.—J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 2nd series, p. 34; G. Moberly, Parochial Sermons, p. 271.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v8
Jeremiah
A THREEFOLD DISEASE AND A TWOFOLD CURE.
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Jer 33:8.
Jeremiah was a prisoner in the palace of the last King of Judah. The long, national tragedy had reached almost the last scene of the last act. The besiegers were drawing their net closer round the doomed city. The prophet had never faltered in predicting its fall, but he had as uniformly pointed to a period behind the impending ruin, when all should be peace and joy. His song was modulated from a saddened minor to triumphant jubilation. In the beginning of this chapter he has declared that the final struggles of the besieged will only end in filling the land with their corpses, and then, from that lowest depth, he soars in a burst of lyrical prophecy conceived in the highest poetic style. The exiles shall return, the city shall be rebuilt, its desolate streets shall ring with hymns of praise and the voices of the bridegroom and the bride. The land shall be peopled with peaceful husbandmen, and white with flocks. There shall be again a King upon the throne; sacrifices shall again be offered. ‘In those days, and at that time, will I cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto David. . . . In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, the Lord our righteousness.’ That fair vision of the future begins with the offer of healing and cure, and with the exuberant promise of my text. The first thing to be dealt with was Judah’s sin; and that being taken away, all good and blessing would start into being, as flowerets will spring when the baleful shadow of some poisonous tree is removed. Now, my text at first reading seems to expend a great many unnecessary words in saying the same thing over and over again, but the accumulation of synonyms not only emphasises the completeness of the promise, but also presents different aspects of that promise. And it is to these that I crave your attention in this sermon. The great words of my text are as true a gospel for us-and as much needed by us, God knows!-as they were for Jeremiah’s contemporaries; and we can understand them better than either he or they did, because the days that were to come then have come now, and the King who was to reign in righteousness is reigning to-day, and His Name is Christ. My object now is, as simply as I can, to draw your attention to the two points in this text: a threefold view of our sad condition, and a twofold bright hope.
Now for the first of these. There is here-
I. A threefold view of the sad condition of humanity.
Observe the recurrence of the same idea in our text in different words: ‘Their iniquity whereby they have sinned against Me.’ . . . ‘Their iniquity whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against Me.’ You see there are three expressions which roughly may be taken as referring to the same ugly fact, but yet not meaning quite the same-’iniquity, or iniquities, sin, transgression.’ These three all speak of the same sad element in your experience and mine, but they speak it from somewhat different points of view, and I wish to try to bring out that difference for you.
Suppose that three men were to describe a snake. One of them fixes his attention on its slimy coils, and describes its sinuous gliding movements. Another of them is fascinated by its wicked beauty, and talks about its livid markings and its glittering eye. The third thinks only of the swift-darting fangs, and of the poison-glands. They all three describe the snake, but they describe it from different points of view; and so it is here. ‘Iniquity,’ ‘sin,’ ‘transgression’ are synonyms to some extent, but they do not cover the same ground. They look at the serpent from different points of view.
First, a sinful life is a twisted or warped life. The word rendered ‘iniquity,’ in the Old Testament, in all probability literally means something that is not straight, but is bent, or, as I said, twisted or warped. That is a metaphor that runs through a great many languages. I suppose ‘right’ expresses a corresponding image, and means that which is straight and direct; and I suppose that ‘wrong’ has something to do with ‘wrung’-that which has been forcibly diverted from a right line. We all know the conventional colloquialism about a man being ‘straight,’ and such-and-such a thing being ‘on the straight.’ All sin is a twisting of the man from his proper course. Now there underlies that metaphor the notion that there is a certain line to which we are to conform. The schoolmaster draws a firm, straight line in the child’s copybook; and then the little unaccustomed hand takes up on the second line its attempt, and makes tremulous, wavering pot-hooks and hangers. There is a copyhead for us, and our writing is, alas! all uneven and irregular, as well as blurred and blotted. There is a law, and you know it. You carry in yourself-I was going to say, the standard measure, and you can see whether when you put your life by the side of that, the two coincide. It is not for me to say; I know about my own, and you may know about yours, if you will be honest. The warped life belongs to us all.
The metaphor may suggest another illustration. A Czar of Russia was once asked what should be the course of the railway from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and he took up a ruler and drew a straight line upon the chart, and said, ‘There; that is the course.’ There is a straight road marked out for us all, going, like the old Roman roads, irrespective of physical difficulties in the contour of the country, climbing right over Alps if necessary, and plunging down into the deepest valleys, never deflecting one hairsbreadth, but going straight to its aim. And we-what are we? what are ‘our crooked, wandering ways in which we live,’ by the side of that straight path? This very prophet has a wonderful illustration, in which he compares the lives of men who have departed from God to the racing about in the wilderness of a wild dromedary, ‘entangling her ways,’ as he says, crossing and recrossing, and getting into a maze of perplexity. Ah, my friend, is that not something like your life? Here is a straight road, and there are the devious footpaths that we have made, with many a detour, many a bend, many a coming back instead of going forward. ‘The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city.’ All sin is deflection from the straight road, and we are all guilty of that.
Let me urge you to consult the standard that you carry within yourselves. If you never have done it before, do it now; or, better, when you are alone by yourselves. It is easy to imagine that a line is straight. But did you ever see the point of a needle under a microscope? However finely it is polished, and apparently tapering regularly, the scrutinising investigation of the microscope shows that it is all rough and irregular. What would a builder do if he had not a T-square and a level? His wall would be ever so far out, whilst he thought it perfectly perpendicular. And remember that a line at a very acute angle of deflection only needs to be carried out far enough to diverge so widely from the other line that you could put the whole solar system in between the two. The smallest departure from the line of right will end, unless it is checked, away out in the regions of darkness beyond. That is the lesson of the first of the words here.
The second of them, rendered in our version ‘sin,’ if I may recur to my former illustration, looks at the snake from a different point of view, and it declares that all sin misses the aim. The meaning of the word in the original is simply ‘that which misses its mark.’ And the meaning of the prevalent word in the New Testament for ‘sin’ means, in accordance with the ethical wisdom of the Greek, the same thing. Now, there are two ways in which that thought may be looked at. Every wrong thing that we do misses the aim, if you consider what a man’s aim ought to be. We have grown a great deal wiser than the Puritans nowadays, and people make cheap reputations for advanced thought by depreciating their theology. We have not got beyond the first answer of the Shorter Catechism, ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.’ That is the only aim which corresponds to our constitution, to our circumstances. A palaeontologist will pick up part of a skeleton embedded in the rocks, and from the study of a bone or two will tell you whether that creature was meant to swim, or to fly, or to walk; whether its element was sea, or sky, or land. Our destination for God is as plainly stamped on heart, mind, will, practical powers, as is the destination of such a creature deducible from its skeleton. ‘Whose image and superscription hath it?’ God’s, stamped deep upon us all. And so, brother, whatever you win, unless you win God, you have missed the aim. Anything short of knowing Him and loving Him, serving Him, being filled and inspired by Him, is contrary to the destiny stamped upon us all. And if you have won God, then, whatever other human prizes you may have missed, you have made the best of life. Unless He is yours, and you are His, you have made a miss, and if I might venture to add, a mess, of yourself and of your life.
Then there is another side to this. The solemn teaching of this word is not confined to that thought, but also opens out into this other, that all godlessness, all the low, sinful lives that so many of us live, miss the shabby aim which they set before themselves. I do not believe that any men or women ever got as much good, even of the lowest kind, out of a wrong thing as they expected to get when they ventured on it. If they did, they got something else along with it that took all the gilt off the gingerbread. Take the lowest kind of gross evil-sins of lust or of drunkenness. Well, no doubt the physical satisfaction desired is secured. Yes; and what about what comes after, in addition, that was not aimed at? The drunkard gets his pleasurable oblivion, his desired excitement. What about the corrugated liver, the palsied hand, the watery eye, the wrecked life, the broken hearts at home, and all the other accompaniments? There is an old Greek legend about a certain messenger that came to earth with a box, in which were all manner of pleasant gifts, and down at the bottom was a speckled pest that, when the box was emptied, crawled out into the sunshine and infected the land. That Pandora’s box is like ‘the good things’ that sin brings to men. You gain, perhaps, your advantage, and you get something that spoils it all. Is not that your experience? I do not deny that you may satisfy your lower desires by a godless life. I know only too well how hard it is to get people to have higher tastes, and how all we ministers of religion are spending our efforts in order to win people to love something better than the world can give them. I also know that, if I could get to the very deepest recess of your hearts, you would admit that pleasures or advantages that are complete, that is to say, that satisfy you all round, and that are lasting, and that can front conscience and God who is at the back of conscience, are not to be won on the paths of sin and godlessness.
There is an old story that speaks of a knight and his company who were travelling through a desert, and suddenly beheld a castle into which they were invited and hospitably welcomed. A feast was spread before them, and each man ate and drank his fill. But as soon as they left the enchanted halls, they were as hungry as before they sat at the magic table. That is the kind of food that all our wrongdoing provides for us. ‘He feedeth on ashes,’ and hungers after he has fed. So, dear friends, learn this ancient wisdom, which is as true today as it ever was; and be sure, of this, that there is only one course in this world which will give a man true, lasting satisfaction; that there is only one life, the life of obedience to and love of God, about which, at the end, there will not need to be said, ‘This their way is their folly.’
And now, further, there is yet another word here, carrying with it important lessons. The expression which is translated in our text ‘transgressed,’ literally means ‘rebelled.’ And the lesson of it is, that all sin is, however little we think it, a rebellion against God. That introduces a yet graver thought than either of the former have brought us face to face with. Behind the law is the Lawgiver. When we do wrong, we not only blunder, we not only go aside from the right line, but also we lift up ourselves against our Sovereign King, and we say, ‘Who is the Lord that we should serve Him? Our tongues are our own. Who is Lord over us? Let us break His bands asunder, and cast away His cords from us.’ There are crimes against law; there are faults against one another. Sins are against God; and, dear friends, though you do not realise it, this is plain truth, that the essence, the common characteristic, of all the acts which, as we have seen, are twisted and foolish, is that in them we are setting up another than the Lord our God to be our ruler. We are enthroning ourselves in His place. Do you not feel that that is true, and that in some small thing in which you go wrong, the essence of it is that you are seeking to please yourself, no matter what duty-which is only a heathen name for God-says to you?
Does not that thought make all these apparently trivial and insignificant deeds terribly important? Treason is treason, no matter what the act by which it is expressed. It may be a little thing to haul down a union-jack from a flagstaff, or to tear off a barn-door a proclamation with the royal arms at the top of it, but it may be rebellion. And if it is, it is as bad as to turn out a hundred thousand men in the field, with arms in their hands. There are small faults, there are trivial crimes; there are no small sins. An ounce of arsenic is arsenic, just as much as a ton; and it is a poison just as surely.
Now I have enlarged perhaps unduly on this earlier part of my subject, and can but briefly turn to the second division which I suggested, viz.:-
II. The twofold bright hope which shines through this darkness.
‘I will cleanse . . . I will pardon.’
If sin combines in itself all these characteristics that I have touched upon, then clearly there is guilt, and clearly there are stains; and the gracious promise of this text deals with both the one and the other.
‘I will pardon.’ What is pardon? Do not limit it to the analogy of a criminal court. When the law of the land pardons, or rather when the administrator of the law pardons, that simply means that the penalty is suspended. But is that forgiveness? Certainly it is only a part of it, even if it is a part. What do you fathers and mothers do when you forgive your child? You may use the rod or you may not, that is a question of what is best for the child. Forgiveness does not lie in letting him off the punishment; but forgiveness lies in the flowing to the child, uninterrupted, of the love of the parent heart, and that is God’s forgiveness. Penalties, some of them, remain-thank God for it! ‘Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions,’ and the chastisement was part of the sign of the forgiveness. The great penalty of all, which is separation from God, is taken away; but the essence of that pardon, which it is my blessed work to proclaim to all men, is, that in spite of the prodigal’s rags and the stench of the sty, the Father’s love is round about him. It is round about you, brother.
Do you need pardon? Do you not? What does conscience say? What does the sense of remorse that sometimes blesses you, though it tortures, say? There are tendencies in this generation, as always, but very strong at present, to ignore the fact that all sin must necessarily lead to tremendous consequences of misery. It does so in this world, more or less. A man goes into another world as he left this one, and you and I believe that ‘after death is the judgment.’ Do you not require pardon? And how are you to get it? ‘Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.’ Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died that the loving forgiveness of God might find its way to every heart, and might take all men to its bosom, whilst yet the righteousness of God remained untarnished. I know not any gospel that goes deep enough to touch the real sore place in human nature, except the gospel that says to you and me and all of us, ‘Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.’
But forgiveness is not enough, for the worst results of past sin are the habits of sin which it leaves within us; so that we all need cleansing. Can we cleanse ourselves? Let experience answer. Did you ever try to cure yourself of some little trick of gesture, or manner, or speech? And did you not find out then how strong the trivial habit was? You never know the force of a current till you try to row against it. ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin?’ No; but God can change it for him. So, again, we say that Jesus Christ who died for ‘the remission of sins that are past,’ lives that He may give to each of us His own blessed life and power, and so draw us from our evil, and invest us in His good. Dear brother, I beseech you to look in the face the fact of your rebellion, of your missing your aim, of your perverted life, and to ask yourself the question, ‘Can I deal either with the guilt of the past, or with the imperative tendency to repeated sin in the future?’ You may have your leprous flesh made ‘like the flesh of a little child.’ You may have your stained robe washed and made lustrous ‘white in the blood of the Lamb.’ Pardon and cleansing are our two deepest needs. There is one hand from which we can receive them both, and one only. There is one condition on which we shall receive them, which is that we trust in Him, ‘Who was crucified for our offences, and lives to hallow us into His own likeness.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 1-13. Restoration and honour again promised.
1-13. Restoration and honour again promised.
1. See on Jer_32:2.
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2. The maker thereof] RV 'that doeth it' (viz. that which He hath purposed).
4. By the mounts, and by the sword] RV 'to make a defence against the mounts, and against the sword,' to make room for the besieged to erect defensive works. For 'mounts'see Jer_6:6.
5. They] the besieged. The only result of their fighting is that they fill these houses with the slain.
11. Praise the Lord, etc.] Jeremiah quotes from the Temple liturgical forms: cp. 2Ch_5:13.; Psa_106:1.
13. Mountains, etc.] see on Jer_32:44. Telleth] counteth.
14-18. Permanence of the kingly and priestly line.
15, 16. See on Jer_23:5.
16. The Lord our righteousness] RV 'The Lord is our righteousness.' The name is here given to the city, as it was given in Jer_23:6 to the king.
17, 18. In these vv. the prophet declares the permanence of the office of king in the Davidic line, and of the priesthood among the Levites. The prophecy is sometimes mystically interpreted of Christ.
18. Meat offerings] see on Jer_17:26.
19-26. God's covenant is as sure as the ordinances of nature.
19f. See on Jer_31:36 for the argument.
21. For the covenant with David's line see 2Sa_7:12., and for that with the Levites (in the person of Phinehas) Num_25:18.
24. The people, seeing that both Israel and Judah (the two families) are being apparently cast off, despise their own nation, despair of any better days, and consider their national existence to be a thing of the past.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 15 while he
while he
(See Scofield "Jer 37:11").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 New Message of Restoration and Blessing
CHAPTER 33
New Message of Restoration and Blessing
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1. The call to pray and Jerusalem’s overthrow (Jer 33:1-5)
2. Future blessing and glory (Jer 33:6-14)
3. The Branch of Righteousness; Jerusalem’s new name (Jer 33:15-18)
4. Jehovah’s faithfulness (Jer 33:19-26)
Jer 33:1-5. Jeremiah is still in prison, as we learn from the first verse. The siege of Jerusalem is on. Then the Lord said, “Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” What an offer and what an assurance! Then the Lord speaks of the great and mighty things, announcing first the overthrow of Jerusalem. The demolished houses of Jerusalem are coming to be used in the defense to serve against the mounds and the sword. There will be great slaughter. (The Hebrew text of Jer 33:4 and Jer 33:5 has many difficulties.)
Jer 33:6-14. The next great and mighty things revealed are the future blessings and glory. Health and cure, abundance of peace and truth, a complete return from the captivity of both Judah and Israel, cleansing from all their iniquity, complete forgiveness, all are promised; and let it be remembered none of these promises has been realized. Jer 33:9-13 also concern the future restoration of the land and the city. What a day is yet to come when “the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say, Praise the LORD of Hosts” is heard, when Zion sings her beautiful redemption songs. “Behold the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” The delay may be long and still deferred according to His eternal purposes; but at the appointed time these days will surely come.
Jer 33:15-18. “In those days” in the coming days, the days of blessing and glory, when Christ comes the second time, He, the Branch of Righteousness will occupy the throne of His father David. (See Luk 1:32.) Then salvation for His people will have come, and the city will receive a new name, the name of Him whose glory covers it, “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Likewise will the temple worship be restored. (See annotations on Ezekiel’s millennial temple.)
Jer 33:19-26. This is similar to Jer 31:35, etc. His gifts and calling are without repentance. The Davidic covenant stands. He does not cast away His people.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 The Contrast Between Destruction and Restoration
The Contrast Between Destruction and Restoration
v. 1. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, during the shameful imprisonment inflicted upon him by Zedekiah, saying,
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v. 2. Thus saith the Lord, the Maker thereof, literally, "the Doer," He who performs what He promises and threatens, the Lord that formed it, to establish it, or, "He who prepares it to complete it," carrying out His plans without fail; the Lord is His name, Jehovah, the God of the covenant:
v. 3. Call unto Me, namely, in making a plea for the restoration of Judah, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things, proclaiming or announcing great and inaccessible things, which thou knowest not, which are beyond human understanding and comprehension, which human knowledge would never expect.
v. 4. For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, the various buildings making up the royal palace, which are thrown down by the mounts and by the sword, literally, "against the ramparts and against the sword," for the buildings of Jerusalem were wrecked in order to get a sufficient amount of stones to strengthen the walls against the advancing army of the invaders;
v. 5. they come to fight with the Chaldeans, the people of Judah being determined to resist the hostile army, but it is to fill them, namely, the houses of the city, with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in Mine anger and in My fury, and for all whose wickedness I have hid My face from this city, this last verse being inserted by way of parenthesis:
v. 6. Behold, I will bring it, the city of Jerusalem, health and cure, by binding up the wounds of the war, and I will cure them, healing the wounds inflicted by the enemies, and will reveal unto them, His people, the abundance of peace and truth, that is, genuine, lasting prosperity.
v. 7. And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel, of all those who are his children in truth, to return, and will build them, as at the first, when He first made them His people, at the time of the exodus from Egypt.
v. 8. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity whereby they have sinned against Me, their guilt being removed by His forgiveness; and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against Me. This is the basis of the lasting covenant of salvation, the Lord’s pardoning grace over against all poor sinners.
v. 9. And it shall be to Me a name of joy, a praise, and an honor before all the nations of the earth, Jerusalem itself, with its congregation of believers, becoming a city the very mention of whose name would cause Jehovah to rejoice, while nations in every part of the world would praise her, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them; and they shall fear and tremble, with the fear of repentant sinners, for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it, on account of the miraculous power of God displayed in behalf of the Jews. Even thus men everywhere, in coming to the knowledge of the true God, serve Him with fear and rejoice with trembling, walking before Him and increasing daily in holiness.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 17, 19, 23, 25 General Information:
General Information:
See: Poetry and Parallelism
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the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was ... guard, saying, "Yahweh
The idiom "the word of Yahweh came to" is used to introduce a special message from God. See how you translated a similar phrase in Jeremiah 1:13. AT: "Yahweh gave a message to Jeremiah a second time, while Jeremiah was ... guard. He said, 'Yahweh" or "While Jeremiah was ... guard, Yahweh spoke this second message to Jeremiah: 'Yahweh" (See: Idiom)
came to Jeremiah
It is not clear why Jeremiah is referring to himself by name here. There is no need to translate using first person. (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
who forms in order to establish
who creates things so he can make them exist forever
he was still shut within
"he was still a prisoner in"
the courtyard of the guard
This was an open area attached to the king's palace that was surrounded by buildings and in which they kept prisoners. See how you translated this in Jeremiah 32:2.
translationWords
word of God
Jeremiah
court
Yahweh
name
call
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23 33:1-26 As the city of Jerusalem and the king…
33:1-26 As the city of Jerusalem and the king of Judah were falling to invaders, God gave Jeremiah a greater understanding of his long-range plan. The promises could only come true after the promised destruction. The hope of the nation was not to be found in escape from destruction but in the purification that destruction would bring. • Jeremiah was . . . confined in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace from the latter part of 587 BC, when the siege was underway, until the fall of Jerusalem in August 586 BC (see 32:2).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.