Jeremiah 3:19 Kommentar

The foregoing chapter was wholly taken up with reproofs and threatenings against the people of God, for their apostasies from him; but in this chapter gracious invitations and encouragements are given them to return and repent, notwithstanding the multitude and greatness of their provocations, which are here specified, to magnify the mercy of God, and to show that as sin abounded grace did much more abound. Here, I. It is further shown how bad they had been and how well they deserved to be quite abandoned, and yet how ready God was to receive them into his favour upon their repentance (Jer 3:1-5) II. The impenitence of Judah, and their persisting in sin, are aggravated from the judgments of God upon Israel, which they should have taken warning by (Jer 3:6-11). III. Great encouragements are given to these backsliders to return and repent, and promises made of great mercy which God had in store for them, and which he would prepare them for by bringing them home to himself (Jer 3:12-19). IV. The charge renewed against them for their apostasy from God, and the invitation repeated to return and repent, to which are here added the words that are put in their mouth, which they should make use of in their return to God (Jer 3:20-25).

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 3 In this chapter the sins of the people of Israel and Judah are exposed; particularly their idolatry, signified by playing the harlot; which is aggravated by the number of lovers or idols they had worshipped; by the many places where they had committed it; by their impudence in doing it; and by the bad consequence of it, showers of rain being withheld from them on that account, Jer 3:1 and the grace of God towards them is abundantly declared by frequent calls unto them to repent and turn to him, and this after putting them away, which is not usual, Jer 3:1, the Lord expostulates with them, and puts words into their mouths, what they should say to him, even after they had spoken and done as evil things as they could, Jer 3:4 the sin of Judah is particularly aggravated, by having seen what Israel, or the ten tribes, had done; their impenitence, notwithstanding the divine call; their going into captivity for their sin; and yet all this had no effect on Judah, to restrain them from the like sins, and to engage them to repentance; so that, of the two, the men of Judah were most to blame, Jer 3:6, wherefore the prophet is bid to go towards the north, where Babylon lay, and Israel were carried captive, and call upon them to return to the Lord, and proclaim his grace and mercy to them, only insisting upon an acknowledgment of their sins, their idolatry and disobedience, Jer 3:12 and next the call to them to return is repeated; to which they are encouraged by observing the relations, they stood in to him, which continued, by promising to bring a remnant of them to Zion, and give them pastors approved of by him, and profitable to them, Jer 3:14 which respect Gospel times, and the latter day, when the ceremonial law would be abrogated, Jer 3:16, the Gentiles called, Jer 3:17 and an entire agreement between Judah and Israel, Jer 3:18 and yet the Lord expresses a concern how he should reckon them as his children, and treat them as such, who had behaved so ill towards him; but his grace gets over the difficulties; finds out a way, by putting it into their mouths to call him their Father, and not turn away from him, Jer 3:19 and this, notwithstanding their great treachery to him, perversion of their ways, and forgetfulness of the Lord, Jer 3:20, and they are again exhorted to repent and turn, with a promise of healing their backslidings, which has such an effect upon them, as to engage them to come to him, Jer 3:22 acknowledging their salvation is only in him, and not in their idols; and that sin was the cause of all their calamities; and that shame and confusion of face belonged unto them on that account, Jer 3:23.

But I said,.... Within himself, in the thoughts of his heart, when he took up a resolution concerning their conversion, open adoption, and return to their own land, as a symbol of the eternal inheritance: how shall I put thee among the children? among the children of God, who are so by special adopting grace, which is a high and honourable privilege, greater than to be the sons and daughters of the greatest potentate on earth; who as they are high birth, being born of God, so they are brought up, and fed, and clothed as the children of the King of kings; they have great nearness to and freedom with God their Father; they are heirs with God and joint heirs with Christ, and shall ever remain in this relation. There is a secret and an open putting of the sons of men among the children of God. The secret putting of them among the children is by God the Father, when he predestinated them unto the adoption of children by Christ; when he promised in covenant he would be their Father, and they should be his sons and daughters; and as an act of his own will, secretly, in his own breast, adopted them into his family, his will to adopt being the adoption of them; hence they are called the children of God, previous to their redemption and sanctification, Heb 2:13. Moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ was concerned in this affair by espousing these persons to himself in covenant, whereby his Father became their Father, and his God their God; and by assuming their nature, whereby they became his brethren, and so the children of God; and by redeeming them, whereby way is made for their actual reception of the adoption of children; when they are openly put among them in the effectual calling, in which the Holy Spirit is concerned, who regenerates them, works faith in them, and witnesses their adoption to them, from whence he is called the Spirit of adoption; regeneration and faith are the evidences of adoption, Joh 1:12 and the Spirit the witness, Rom 8:15. Now, as all things were seen in one view by the Lord from eternity, as well when he secretly as openly puts them among the children, it may well be thought there were difficulties, at least seeming ones, in the way of it; or, however, such as make it wonderful and marvellous that any of the sons of Adam should be put among the children of God; seeing they that are, sinned in Adam as the rest, fell with him in his transgression into a state of condemnation and death; are corrupt in their first birth, defiled in soul and body, and cast out like the wretched infant, to the loathing of their persons; are as the children of the Ethiopians, black with original and actual sins; are children of disobedience, traitors and rebels against God, and children of wrath, even as others. And though these words may have a principal respect to the Jews, who dealt treacherously with God, in departing from his pure worship, rejecting the Messiah, and continuing in their obstinacy and infidelity, having a "loammi" upon them, and notwithstanding shall be called the children of the living God, Hos 1:9, yet may be applied to any of the sons and daughters of men, whether Jews or Gentiles, that are put among the children of God. And give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of the nations? the allusion, doubtless, is to the land of Israel, which was a goodly and desirable land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and was the heritage or inheritance of the children of Israel, but not of the hosts of nations; wherefore heaven and eternal happiness is ultimately meant, the better country Christian pilgrims are seeking after, and the desired haven Christian sailors make unto: this is a "pleasant land"; pleasantly situated on high, where are great plenty of provisions, solid substance, enduring riches, the greatest liberty and choices, privileges, and the best of inhabitants and company, Father, Son, and Spirit, angels and glorified saints: this is a goodly heritage or "inheritance"; not only a house not made with hands, a city that has foundations, but a kingdom and glory, an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, which fades not away, reserved in the heavens: and it may be said to be of the hosts of nations; for, though it is but one inheritance, vast numbers will share in it, and possess it; even an innumerable company of all nations, kindreds, people, and tongues, which are chosen, redeemed, and called out of them: and this is in, the "gift" of God; he regenerates to a lively hope of it, makes meet for it, and of his own good pleasure bestows it; and marvellous it is that he should give it to the persons before described; the putting of them among the children of God, and giving them such an inheritance, are entirely owing to his sovereign grace and goodness, which only can answer the question put, concerning these things. And I said, thou shalt call me my father; not merely saying these words, but expressing them with affection and faith, under the witnessings of the Spirit of God; and declaring the relation by deeds, by honouring and obeying him, and being a follower of him in his ways and worship: and shalt not turn away from me; either from calling him Father, through the prevalence of unbelief; or from his service and worship, through the power of corruptions, backsliding and revolting from him, with which they are often charged in this chapter; so the Targum, "shalt not turn from my worship.''

(Verse 19) But I said: How shall I put you among the children, and give you a desirable land, an excellent heritage of the armies of the nations? And I said, you shall call me father, and you shall not cease to follow me. For the excellent heritage of the armies of the nations, which the Seventy translated, Theodotion more significantly translated as the renowned heritage of the strongest nations, signifying Christ, who is the leader and Lord of all nations, to his name and the belief in his passion. He himself said to Israel: 'You shall call me Father.' And: 'Whoever believes in me, believes in the Father' (John II, 19). He himself promised: 'I will make you into sons: in the number, namely, of my sons, who have believed in me from the people of the nations; and to whom I have given the desirable land.' For as many as received him, he gave them the power to become sons of God (John I).

Our obstinacy and scorn, reflecting our spirit of rebellious disdain for him when he urges us to return and be saved, is described in the following comparison. He says, “And I said you shall call me Father and shall not cease to walk after me. But as a woman that despises her lover, so has the house of Israel despised me, says the Lord.” It is only appropriate that as he has compared Jerusalem with an adulteress forsaking her husband, he compares his own love and persevering goodness with a man’s undying love for a woman. For the goodness and love of God that he has always shown to the human race could not be more appropriately described by any comparison than the case of a man inflamed with most ardent love for a woman. God’s love is overcome by no injuries that might make him stop caring for our salvation or that might drive him from his first intention as if he were defeated by our sins. Instead, he is consumed by a more burning passion for her, the more he sees that he is slighted and despised by her.

GOD'S MERCY NOTWITHSTANDING JUDAH'S VILENESS. (Jer. 3:1-25) They say--rather, as Hebrew, "saying," in agreement with "the LORD"; Jer 2:37 of last chapter [MAURER]. Or, it is equivalent to, "Suppose this case." Some copyist may have omitted, "The word of the Lord came to me," saying. shall he return unto her--will he take her back? It was unlawful to do so (Deu 24:1-4). shall not--Should not the land be polluted if this were done? yet return-- (Jer 3:22; Jer 4:1; Zac 1:3; compare Eze 16:51, Eze 16:58, Eze 16:60). "Nevertheless," &c. (see on Isa 50:1).

The good land covenanted to Abraham is to be restored to his seed. But the question arises, How shall this be done? put . . . among . . . children--the Greek for adoption means, literally, "putting among the sons." the children--that is, My children. "How shall I receive thee back into My family, after thou hast so long forsaken Me for idols?" The answer is, they would acknowledge Him as "Father," and no longer turn away from Him. God assumes the language of one wondering how so desperate apostates could be restored to His family and its privileges (compare Eze 37:3; CALVIN makes it, How the race of Abraham can be propagated again, being as it were dead); yet as His purpose has decreed it so, He shows how it shall be effected, namely, they shall receive from Him the spirit of adoption to cry, "My Father" (Joh 1:12; Gal 4:6). The elect are "children" already in God's purpose; this is the ground of the subsequent realization of this relationship (Eph 1:5; Heb 2:13). pleasant land-- (Jer 11:5; Eze 20:6; Dan 11:16, Margin). heritage of . . . hosts--a heritage the most goodly of all nations [MAURER]; or a "heritage possessed by powerful hosts" (Deu 4:38; Amo 2:9). The rendering "splendors," instead of "hosts," is opposed by the fact that the Hebrew for "splendor" is not found in the plural.

The return of Israel to its God. - Jer 3:19. "I thought, O how I will put thee among the sons, and give thee a delightful land, a heritage of the chiefest splendour of the nations! and thought, 'My Father,' ye will cry to me, and not turn yourselves away from me. Jer 3:20. truly as a wife faithlessly forsakes her mate, so are ye become faithless towards me, house of Israel, saith Jahveh. Jer 3:21. A voice upon the bare-topped hills is heard, suppliant weeping of the sons of Israel; for that they have made their way crooked, forsaken Jahveh their God. Jer 3:22. 'Return, ye backsliding sons, I will heal your backsliding,' Behold, we come to thee; for Thou Jahveh art our God. Jer 3:23. Truly the sound from the hills, from the mountains, is become falsehood: truly in Jahveh our God is the salvation of Israel. Jer 3:24. And shame hath devoured the gains of our fathers from our youth on; their sheep and their oxen, their sons and their daughters. Jer 3:25. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our disgrace cover us; for against Jahveh our God have we sinned, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not listened to the voice of our God." Hitz. takes Jer 3:18 and Jer 3:19 together, without giving an opinion on ואנכי אמרתּי. Ew. joins Jer 3:19 to the preceding, and begins a new strophe with Jer 3:21. Neither assumption can be justified. With Jer 3:18 closes the promise which formed the burden of the preceding strophe, and in Jer 3:19 there begins a new train of thought, the announcement as to how Israel comes to a consciousness of sin and returns penitent to the Lord its God (Jer 3:21-25). The transition to this announcement is formed by Jer 3:19 and Jer 3:20, in which the contrast between God's fatherly designs and Israel's faithless bearing towards God is brought prominently forward; and by ואנכי אמרתּי it is attached to the last clause of the 18th verse. His having mentioned the land into which the Israelites would again return, carries the prophet's thoughts back again to the present and the past, to the bliss which Jahveh had designed for them, forfeited by their faithless apostasy, and to be regained only by repentant return (Graf). "I thought," refers to the time when God gave the land to their fathers for an inheritance. Then spake, i.e., thought, I; cf. Psa 31:23. How I will set thee or place thee among the sons! i.e., how I will make thee glorious among the sons (שׁית c. accus. and ב, as in Sa2 19:29). No valid objection against this is founded by Hitz.'s plea that in that case we must read אשׁיתך, and that by Jeremiah, the teacher of morals, no heathen nation, or any but Israel, can ever be regarded as a son of God (Jer 31:9, Jer 31:20). The fem. אשׁיתך is explained by the personification of Judah and Israel as two sisters, extending throughout the whole prophecy. The other objection is erroneous as to the fact. In Jer 31:9 Jahveh calls Ephraim, = Israel, his first-born son, as all Israel is called by God in Exo 4:22. But the conception of first-born has, as necessary correlate, that of other "sons." Inasmuch as Jahveh the God of Israel is creator of the world and of all men, all the peoples of the earth are His בּנים; and from amongst all the peoples He has made choice of Israel as סגלּה, or chosen him for His first-born son. Hitz.'s translation: how will I endow thee with children, is contrary to the usage of the language. - The place which God willed to give Israel amongst His children is specified by the next clause: and I willed to give thee a delightful land (ארץ חמדּה as in Zac 7:14; Psa 106:24). צבי צבאות, ornament of ornaments, i.e., the greatest, most splendid ornament. For there can be no doubt that צבאות does not come from צבא, but, with Kimchi after the Targum, is to be derived from צבי; for the plural צביים from צבי may pass into צבאים, cf. Gesen. 93. 6b, as Ew., too, in 186, c, admits, though he takes our צבאות from צבא, and strains the meaning into: an heirloom-adornment amidst the hosts of heathen. After such proofs of a father's love, God expected that Israel would by a true cleaving to Him show some return of filial affection. To cry, "My father," is a token of a child's love and adherence. The Chet. תּקראוּ and תּשׁוּבוּ are not to be impugned; the Keris are unnecessary alterations. Jer 3:20-21 But Israel did not meet the expectation. Like a faithless wife from her husband, Israel fell away from its God. The particle of comparison כּאשׁר is omitted before the verb, as in Isa 55:9, cf. Isa 55:10 and Isa 55:11. רע does not precisely mean husband, nor yet paramour, but friend and companion, and so here is equal to wedded husband. בּגד c. מן, withdraw faithlessly from one, faithlessly forsake - c. בּ, be faithless, deal faithlessly with one. Yet Israel will come to a knowledge of its iniquity, and bitterly repent it, Jer 3:21. From the heights where idolatry was practised, the prophet already hears in spirit the lamentations and supplications of the Israelites entreating for forgiveness. על שׁפיים points back to Jer 3:2, when the naked heights were mentioned as the scenes of idolatry. From these places is heard the supplicating cry for pardon. כּי העווּ, because (for that) they had made their way crooked, i.e., had entered on a crooked path, had forgotten their God. Jer 3:22 The prophet further overhears in spirit, as answer to the entreaty of the Israelites, the divine invitation and promise: Return, ye backsliding children (cf. Jer 3:14), I will heal your backslidings. ארפּה for ארפּא. Backslidings, i.e., mischief which backsliding has brought, the wounds inflicted by apostasy from God; cf. Hos 14:5, a passage which was in the prophet's mind; and fore the figure of healing, cf. Jer 30:17; Jer 33:6. To this promise they answer: Behold, we come to Thee (אתנוּ for אתאנוּ from אתא, Isa 21:12, for אתה ), for Thou art Jahveh, art our God. Of this confession they further state the cause in Jer 3:23-25. Jer 3:23 From the false gods they have gained but disgrace; the salvation of Israel is found only in Jahveh their God. The thought now given is clearly expressed in the second clause of the verse; less clear is the meaning of the first clause, which tells what Israel had got from idolatry. The difficulty lies in המון הרים, which the early commentators so joined together as to make המון stat. constr. (המון). Similarly Hitz. and Graf: from the hills the host (or tumult) of the mountains is (for) a delusion; Hitz. understanding by the host of the mountains the many gods, or the numerous statues of them that were erected at the spots where they were worshipped, while Graf takes the tumult of the mountains to mean the turmoil of the pilgrims, the exulting cries of the celebrants. But it is as impossible that "the sound of the hills" should mean the multitude of the gods, as that it should mean the tumult of the pilgrims upon the mountains. Besides, the expression, "the host or tumult of the mountains comes from the hills," would be singularly tautological. These reasons are enough to show that הרים cannot be a genitive dependent on המון, but must be taken as coordinate with מגּבעות, so that the preposition מן will have to be repeated before הרים. But המון must be the subject of the clause, else where would be no subject at all. המון means bustle, eager crowd, tumult, noise, and is also used of the surging mass of earthly possessions or riches, Psa 37:16; Isa 60:5. Schnur., Ros., Maur., de W., have preferred the last meaning, and have put the sense thus: vana est ex collibus, vana ex montibus affluentia, or: delusive is the abundance that comes from the hills, from the mountains. This view is not to be overthrown by Graf's objection, that we cannot here entertain the idea of abundance, however, imaginary, acquired by the Israelites through idolatry, seeing that in the next verses it is declared that the false gods have devoured the wealth which the Israelites had inherited and received from God. For in the present connection the abundance would be not a real but expected or imagined abundance, the delusiveness of which would be shown in the next verse by the statement that the false gods had devoured the acquisitions of Israel. But to take המון in the sense of affluentia seems questionable here, when the context makes no reference to wealth or earthly riches, and where the abundance of the hills and mountains cannot be understood to mean their produce; the abundance is that which the idolatry practised upon the hills and mountains brought or was expected to bring to the people. Hence, along with Ew., we take this word in the sig. tumult or noise, and by it we understand the wild uproarious orgies of idolatry, which, according to Jer 3:2 and Jer 3:6, were practised on the hills and mountains (קל זנוּתהּ, Jer 3:9). Thus we obtain the sense already given by the Targ.: in vanum coluimus super collibus et non in utilitatem congregavimus nos (אתרגישׁנא ( son , prop. tumultuati sumus) super montibus, i.e., delusive and profitless were our idolatrous observances upon the heights. Jer 3:24 In Jer 3:24 we are told in what particulars idolatry became to them הבּשׁת .לשׁקר, the shame, opprobrious expression for הבּעל, equal to shame-god, cf. Jer 11:13 and Hos 9:10; since the worship of Baal, i.e., of the false gods, resulted in disgrace to the people. He devoured the wealth of our fathers, namely, their sheep and oxen, mentioned as a specimen of their wealth, and their sons and daughters. The idols devoured this wealth, to in respect that sheep and oxen, and, on Moloch's altar, children too, were sacrificed, for sheep and oxen were offered to Jahveh; but because idolatry drew down judgments on the people and brought about the devastation of the land by enemies who devoured the substance of the people, and slew sons and daughters, Deu 28:30, Deu 28:33. From our youth on; - the youth of the people is the period of the judges. Jer 3:25 The people does not repudiate this shame and disgrace, but is willing to endure it patiently, since by its sin it has fully deserved it. נשׁכּבה, not: we lie, but: we will lay us down in our shame, as a man in pain and grief throws himself on the ground, or on his couch (cf. Sa2 12:16; Sa2 13:31; Kg1 21:4), in order wholly to give way to the feelings that crush him down. And let our disgrace cover us, i.e., enwrap us as a mourning robe or cloak; cf. Psa 35:26; Psa 109:29; Mic 7:10, Oba 1:10.