16 Thus sait the LORD, Refrain thy voice from weeping, And thine eyes from tears: For thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; For thou art the LORD my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; And after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, Because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? 16. thy work shall be rewarded] As children have been in thy life and thy death a subject of pain and grief to thee, and as these thy descendants again have grievously perished, so the recompense for all this trouble now arrives, and thou shalt witness the return of the captives. 18. The Lord declares that He has heard Ephraim confessing that his punishment was the just consequence of his sin, and praying for acceptance. as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke] as a calf that has not been tamed. 19. after that I was turned] The word 'turn,' as we have already seen (chap. iii. 22, viii. 4), is ambiguous, meaning either turning from or to God. Here the parallel clause which follows ('after that I was instructed,' etc.) would rather suggest the latter of these senses. Repentance, however, comes after this turning, and thus it is shewn to mean turning away from God, seeing that turning towards Him would come not after, but before or with, repentance. instructed] by punishment. Compare the use of the word "taught" (the same verb in the Heb.), Judg. viii. 16. I smote upon my thigh] in token of contrition. the reproach of my youth] the disgrace brought upon me by the sins of my earlier life as a nation. 20. God is represented as the speaker. He asks Himself whether Ephraim is still beloved by Him. The answer is contained in the words that follow. As often as He makes mention of him, His affection towards him is stirred. The picture is of course adapted to human modes of thought and feeling, and represents God as acting in the same 17 18 19 20 21 22 For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: Therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD. Even the way which thou wentest: Turn again, O virgin of Israel, How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding For the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, way in which a man would, when thinking upon the ingratitude and my bowels are troubled] They were the supposed seat of the emotions. My affection is stirred within me. 21. waymarks] stones either as sepulchral (2 Kings xxiii. 17, "title;" Ezek. xxxix. 15, "sign"), or, as here, to mark the road. high heaps] pillars, sign-posts. The verse is a lively way of calling upon the people to make all speed to return. set thine heart] The heart in Heb. denotes the seat of the intellect. Hence the sense is, turn thy attention to the way by which thou wentest into exile, that thou mayest retrace thy steps. 22. How long wilt thou go about] How long wilt thou hesitate to return? A sign follows, in order to induce Israel to complete her reconciliation with her offended God. the Lord hath created...] Much difficulty has been felt in the explanation of the last part of the verse. Any rendering which will not present 'a new thing,' a complete exception to the established order of things, will plainly not satisfy the requirements of the context. This disposes at once of such as the woman will become manly in spirit, the woman will keep close to the man, the woman will seek protection from the man, all of which have been proposed. The only help we seem to get for the (Heb.) verb of the clause, which primarily means, as in the Eng. Vers., to 'compass,' surround, comes from Deut. xxxii. 10, "He (the Lord) led him (Israel) about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye;" and Ps. xxxii. 10, "He that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about, where the verb is that used here. The same notion then of cherishing and protecting will here signify that such is the Lord's condescension towards Israel, that He will for her glory allow the natural order to be reversed, and deign to services, honour, etc.) at her hands. for it attains completion only in the accept protection (of His Temple, This thought is really Messianic, Incarnation of the Divine Son of Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; 23 As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, When I shall bring again their captivity; The LORD bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness. And there shall dwell in Judah itself, And in all the cities thereof together, Husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks. And I have replenished every sorrowful soul. And my sleep was sweet unto me. 27-34. Israel and Judah together shall serve God and prosper. Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, That I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah God, growing up and in youth at any rate cherished (Luke ii. 52) by the Jewish nation, of which in His human nature He was a child. Accordingly many interpreters in all ages have understood the passage of the miraculous conception of Christ. It can hardly, however, be limited to this. The Septuagint ("men shall walk about in safety"), departing from the words of the original, and seeking to render the sense only, have missed the meaning. 23. The Lord now turns from Israel (Ephraim) to Judah, and in this and the next two verses promises her like blessing. 23. As yet] rather, Again, as was the use in former time. mountain of holiness] The expression seems to be used indifferently of the Temple Mountain and of Jerusalem as a whole. See Ps. ii. 6; Is. xi. 9, xxvii. 13, and especially for Jerusalem the following: Is. lxvi. 20; Dan. ix.. 16; Zech. viii. 3. 24. they that go forth] they that go about, opposed to dwellers in fixed habitations, such as the inhabitants of the towns and husbandmen. 25. sorrowful] pining, practically the same word as that rendered "sorrow" in ver. 12, where see note. 26. The words of the prophet himself, as they are not suitable either to God or to the exiles. The ecstatic state under which Jeremiah had received the foregoing communications he here calls 'sleep,' and as the prophecy had been of so unusually cheering a character, that sleep might well be called sweet. 27-34. ISRAEL AND JUDAH TOGETHER SHALL SERVe God and PROSPER. 27. I will sow...with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast] I 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 With the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, To pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, And to destroy, and to afflict; So will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, will make the people and their cattle to prosper and multiply so fast, that the offspring of both shall seem almost to spring from the ground after the manner of seed sown. 28. I have watched over them] The Heb. verb is the same as that rendered "I will hasten" in the Eng. Vers. of chap. i. 12, where see note. to pluck up, &c.] Compare chap. i. 10, xviii. 7, 9. Thus the later and more cheering part of the message for which Jeremiah was ordained is now being delivered by him. 29, 30. The words 'The fathers have eaten,' &c. (quoted also Ezek. xviii. 2) was a common proverb among the Jews, suggested probably, though not (in the sense in which they used it) supported, by the words of the Second Commandment (Exod. xx. 5, 6). The punishment which succeeded to the accumulated iniquities of "the third and fourth generation" could be averted by repentance ("shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments"). The commandment, therefore, is in no way opposed to the words 'every one shall die for his own iniquity,' words which express that juster view of the sins of each generation, younger as well as older, which was to succeed the complaining tone adopted by those blind to their own disobedience, and convinced that they, though innocent, were suffering only for their fathers' faults. We should read the plural sour grapes in both verses, the Heb. being a noun of multitude. 31-34. We have here the announcement of a new covenant which should supersede that made at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, differing from it (i) in permanence, (ii) in the principle by which it should be maintained unbroken. The Mosaic Law consisted of duties imposed upon the people from without; the spring of action which should produce willing conformity to the new covenant was to be wholly within. Moses indeed (Deut. xxx. 6) speaks of the people's hearts being circumcised to love With the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with 32 their fathers In the day that I took them by the hand, To bring them out of the land of Egypt; Although I was a husband unto them, saith the But this shall be the covenant that I will make 33 with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, And will be their God, And they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his 34 neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: For they shall all know me, the Lord with all their heart and soul, but now the motive power that belongs to the new dispensation is for the first time made plain. The sense of forgiveness (ver. 34) through God's grace shall call out such a spirit of gratitude as shall ensure a willing service, depending on inward not outward motives, based on love, not fear. The new covenant therefore is at once to replace the old (see Heb. viii. 8—12), and yet, new in form, to be still the same in substance. 'I will be their God, and they shall be my people,' was the central object of the old (Exod. xxix. 45; Lev. xxvi. 12), even as it is now of the new. 32. in the day that] referring not to the single night of their departure from Egypt, but to the whole exodus time, whose culminating point was when the Law was given at Sinai. although I was a husband unto them] The only important difference in the form of the passage as quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews (see above) is that this clause, following the Septuagint rendering, appears in the form "and I regarded them not.' The Eng. Vers. here is undoubtedly a more faithful rendering of the Heb. The argument of the writer of the Epistle however in no way depended upon the sense of this clause, and there was therefore no reason why he should not give it as it stood in the Authorised Version of his day (Septuagint). 34. The sense is not that there shall be no longer any need of instruction in religion, but that there shall be a directness of access to God, both for Jew and Gentile, which did not exist under the old covenant. (See note on the word know, chap. xvi. 13.) A distinctive feature of the |
