Behold I will bring it healing and cure, and I will cure them; and I will reveal unto them abundance of peace and truth. And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have rebelled against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, and whereby they have transgressed against me. And this city shall be to me for a name of joy, for a praise and for a glory, before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them, and shall fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I procure unto it. Thus saith the Lord: Yet again there shall be heard in this place, whereof ye say, It is waste, without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without beast, 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 say, Give thanks to the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for his mercy endureth forever; and of them that bring sacrifices of thanksgiving into the house of the Lord. For I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first, saith the Lord. Ch. xxxiii, 1–12.

Whether we regard the burden of these chapters to be the future regathering of Israel to the land of their fathers, or that wider renovation so often spoken of in Old and New Testament prophecy as the new heavens and earth, of which better country the land of Canaan was the type, in either case we are compelled to locate their fulfilment beyond death and after resurrection. For, as in the similar case cited from Ezekiel, the terms of the promise require us to believe that not only the just men of some far-distant generations, but the sinful men of that generation were to partake of its benefits. For who were those to be restored and blessed? They were the unbelieving, rebel

lious people of that day (xxxii, 30-35), who, for their own sins and the sins of their fathers (18-20), had been driven into captivity, the larger portion perishing by the sword, the famine and pestilence, (xxxii, 36, xxxiii, 5). These were to be cleansed from their sins (xxxi, 31-37.) The house of Israel was to share with the house of Judah in this restoration, (xxxiii, 14.) He would shew Himself in it "the God of all the families of Israel," of Ephraim and Samaria, (xxxi, 1-12). And that the captivity from which they were to be rescued, whatever of earthly and temporal bondage might be included in it, was the ultimate captivity of death (sheol) is proved both from the nature of the case and from the expressions used concerning it. The song which Jeremiah here puts into the mouth of these ransomed ones (xxxiii, 11) was first sung when David first brought up the ark to Jerusalem (1 Chron. xvi), and again at the dedication of the temple. How could God be mindful of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations (vs. 15), if the generations of the dead were not included in it? It was because He had engaged Himself to take up the cause of these erring dead, that this song, as afterwards sung in the temple service, returns at each stanza to the glad refrain, "For His mercy endureth forever"—that is, through all the age. This insured that He would some day plead the cause of Israel's captive dead, after he had recompensed their iniquity (xxxii, 18, 19.)

That the dead are included here is proved by the specific mention of the agents of death, the sword the famine and the pestilence, who had destroyed His people (xxxii, 24, 36.) The houses of the city were filled with the dead

bodies of men, whom the Lord had slain for their wickedness in his anger and fury (xxxiii, 5.) But these dead of Israel were a part of the whole house for whom Jehovah's mercy was stored up until the end of the age. This is the comfort comveyed in Ch. xxxi, 15–18. There Rahel's voice is heard in bitter weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted. Every reader will remember St. Matthew's application of this passage to the dead infants of Bethlehem. The Lord's promise is,

"Refrain thy voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thy latter end, saith the Lord, and thy children shall come again to their own border."

This then is the deep and ultimate significance of the oft-repeated promise of these chapters, "For I will cause their captivity to return and will have mercy on them." Mercy to their remote descendants will not at all fulfill the whole terms of the promise. The rescue of a pious remnant out of each generation will not suffice: for it was these sinful men who were to be cleansed and renewed and restored. If anyone asks why, if resurrection from the dead be the ultimate deliverance contemplated, it was not more clearly stated, we can only say it has pleased God, for reasons known to Himself, from the first to so hide the mysteries of His grace in his Word that only the spiritual mind shall discern them. The worldly mind in our day, seated sometimes in theological chairs, denies that there is any plain testimony to resurrection and a future life in the Old Testament. And it is hardly to be wondered at, when we consider with what general consent "the hope of the

dead" has been crowded out in our day, not only from the Old Testament, but from the gospel of Christ. But when once the light of this hope dawns upon the mind, all these Old Testament pages glow with it. And so in this passage from Jeremiah, although resurrection is not directly mentioned, yet even the babe in Christ should be able to see that promises of this character to such subjects cannot be fulfilled except in this way of future recovery from death. This is the rescue from "the land of the enemy," which is in view. When this is seen the meaning of numerous hints and suggestions in the passage becomes at once apparent. When Jeremiah lays before God in supplication the insuperable difficulties of the case (xxxii, 16–25)—a people first set in the land by God's great power, and confirmed in it by His oath, and then driven out of it for disobedience and given over to the sword, to famine and pestilence—, the Lord's reply is, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?" (xxxii, 27) He sends out His proclamation to all the nations and the isles afar off: "He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd his flock. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he" (xxxi, 10, 11.) He reminds the prophet that the things He was now revealing were "great and mighty things which thou knowest not." He declares that the covenant by which He had engaged to do them was as fixed as the ordinances of day and night, of sun and moon and stars (xxxi, 35; xxxiii, 20–22.) Blind indeed, must he be, who cannot perceive the gleam of a great triumph over death breaking into light along all these pages. To deny this "hope of the dead," is to throw away

the key to the Old Testament; it is to mutilate and to reject the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

We entreat our readers, therefore, to read carefully, and with prayer for light, these chapters in order to see whether they do not cover the case of Israel's sinful dead. If they do, they establish the main points for which we have all along been contending, namely, that God's judgments upon the unjust fall in this life and after death in a long captivity in sheol where they receive of His hand double for all their sins; but that in His great mercy they share in the ransom given for all men, and are, each in his own time and order, released from their bondage through resurrection from the dead. If God deals in this way with the sinners of Israel, He must deal so with all men. "Is He the God of the Jews only and not of the Gentiles also?" Prophecies concerning the Gentiles contain the germs of these same promises (e. g. Ezek. xvi, 43-53.) Any creed, therefore, which makes the resurrection of the unjust to be only a prelude to retribution, falls into a great mistake. Its framers at this point "know not the Scriptures neither the power of God." If men confront us with what they claim to be distinct statements in the New Testament of resurrection to everlasting punishment, we reply that the New Testament bases itself on the old. It claims nothing else than that the Messiah had come "to perform the mercy promised unto the fathers" (Luke i, 70-71.) We are obliged, therefore, to subordinate all its words about future retribution to the requirements of God's everlasting covenant in obedience to which Christ came. Rightly understood they all fall in with it and confirm it. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was its seal and pledge.