Jeremiah 33

33:1 MORROVER the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he 2 was yet shut up in the court of the guard, saying, Thus saith the LORD that doeth it, the 3 LORD that formeth it to establish it; the LORD is his name: Call unto me, and I will answer 4 thee, and will shew thee great things, and difficult, which thou knowest not. For thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down to make a defence against the mounts, and against 5 the sword: They come to fight with the Chaldeans, but it is to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in mine anger and in my fury, and for all whose wickedness I have 6 hid my face from this city. Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them; 7 and I will reveal unto them abundance of peace and truth. And I will cause the captivity of 8 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 sinned against me; and I will par- don all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, and whereby they have trans- 9 gressed 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 10 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, 11 without man and without inhabitant and without beast, the voice of joy and the voice of glad- ness, 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 for ever; and of them that bring sacrifices of thanksgiving into the house of the LORD. For I will cause the captivity 12 of the land to return as at the first, saith the LORD. Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Yet again shall there be in this place, which is waste, without man and without beast, and in all the 13 cities thereof, an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the LORD. 14 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good word which I have

15 spoken concerning the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall 16 execute judgement and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name whereby she shall be called, The LORD is 17 our righteousness. For thus saith the LORD: David shall never want a man to sit upon the 18 throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to 19 offer burnt offerings, and to burn oblations, and to do sacrifice continually. And the word 20 of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD: If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, so that there should not be day and night in 21 their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should 22 not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured; so will I mul- 23 tiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. And the word of 24 the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD did choose, he hath cast them off? thus do they de- 25 spise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith the LORD: If my covenant of day and night stand not, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven 26 and earth; then will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and will have mercy on them.

Chap. 33. God reveals His gracious purpose of healing the wounds of Jerusalem, restoring the captivity of Judah, forgiving their sins, and distinguishing them with such blessings as to strike the astonished nations with fear and trembling (verses 1-9). He foretells that the land, whose desolation they deplored, should again flourish with multitudes, both of men and cattle (verses 10-13). He confirms His former promise of establishing a kingdom of righteousness in a branch of the house of David, and rendering it perpetual, together with the priesthood of the sons of Levi (verses 14-18). He declares His covenant in this respect with David and the Levites, to be as sure as the covenant of day and night (verses 19-22). And, to remove the reproach of having cast off those families, whom He had once distinguished by His choice, He renews His protestations of infallibly restoring the seed of Jacob, and of appointing the seed of David to rule over them forever (verse 23), to the end. Blayney.

The city was at this time besieged, and tottering to its fall. This prospective ruin of the city and Temple chilled the hearts of those who would fain hold fast to the promises of the Lord, and hence became a sore temptation to despondency and even despair. To reassure their sinking faith, these reiterated promises are given here in the very jaws of national ruin. H. C.

Verses 1-13 may be characterized as God’s promise to Judah and Israel of ultimate return and restoration. Uttered just before the final captivity, the words were designed for the comfort of devout Jews. Through all the long dreary history there had always been true worshippers, for whose sake, in great part, God had forborne with His guilty people. The fervent intercession of these faithful ones, like that of Elijah, had always availed much, even in the darkest crises of Israel’s guilt. And now to these devout and loyal souls, just about to be tried with the fire of utter destruction, God utters these words of hope by Jeremiah. To such as were to be taken captive to Babylon, and to their faithful successors who should arise in the generations of the captivity, He utters these cheering predictions. For the comfort, the faith, patience and hope of all the true-hearted and devout throughout the sad years of exile by the rivers of Babylon, when the throne of David was vacant; when Judah as well as Israel was desolate of people; when there was neither capital nor Temple nor priesthood; when all evidences of their nationality should cease to exist, Jeremiah was here inspired, while announcing the great calamity, to promise a return from exile, and the rebuilding of the Jewish state. B.

1. 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, and a gracious revelation of God’s power and willingness to bless. M.

2, 3. The basis of prayer; the clear invitation and explicit promise; and the specific results here pledged. In the sublime self-assertion of His creative, formative and sustaining might, and in the simple utterance of His covenant name, God invites His troubled people to find evidence of His ability to answer to their utmost call. In this is found the single basis of all prayer; His sovereign might and control in providence, and His covenant mercy toward men. In words of invitation so clear that they cannot be misapprehended, so personal and direct that their summoning force cannot be avoided, He challenges their faith to test His power and willingness, even in respect to issues vast as those involved in this calamity. And we are further to note, that His promise to give in response to their call is absolutely without qualification. Like every other Divine promise in the Old and New Testament, that of the answer to prayer is conditioned upon a right spirit and a trusting heart. The prayer of such a spirit God will assuredly answer; either with that gift which is asked or with a better blessing. What were the great and mighty things promised as the specific result of their call, we learn in the verses following. In these words God discloses the grand results of future Jewish history, involving the coming of Messiah. This disclosure He makes to the praying, trusting and hoping Israelites, that in the days of darkness they might be encouraged to continue their trust and prayer and hope. And not less to faithful believers to-day is this God’s assurance concerning themselves, their households and the Church of Christ. To every faithful, trusting soul to-day, as in every day of all the past, God’s invitation and promise, His declaration of ability and willingness to do great things in response to fervent supplication, still finds expression and fulfilment. B.

Asking, on the one side, and giving in answer to that asking, on the other, would seem to be nearly as unmistakable an account of a direct transaction as speech is capable of composing. Especially would it appear to stand clear of all possible ambiguity, when we remember that the whole Revelation, from end to end of its records, offers no hint of any different theory; that it was precisely in this spirit, and with this understanding, that every biblical believer prayed, from Adam in Eden to John in Patmos—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all patriarchs speaking to Jehovah, and answered by Him; Moses, Samuel, Elijah and the whole line of valiant, praying prophets; David, whose devotions have been the common language of worship through both dispensations, tions, and bear to-day fresher marks of perpetuity than when his own tears fell upon the lines he wrote—whose petitions were accounted worthy to be taken upon the lips of the Redeemer Himself amid the tortures of the crucifixion; the disciples, the mother, evangelists, apostles—all, with undivided agreement, asking the Father for what their soul craved, and receiving at God’s invisible hand, immediately, blessings that, but for such asking, could not have been bestowed. The witnesses are explicit. There are placed before us two parties. One is just as literally and exactly a person as the other; the Divine side of the mutual transaction involving precisely the same attributes of personality as the human—no hint to the contrary; and—mark especially—the fact of conscious request and conscious compliance every way as distinct—the difference between faith and sense being of course granted—as if a hand were visibly stretched out on one side open, and were visibly filled from the other. F. D. H.

He is told to pray for great things. The great and mighty things which it pleased the Lord to bestow and Jeremiah to receive related to the deliverance of the people of God from their future captivity, and the restoration of God’s goodness to them. You observe that God requires to be asked for the great and mighty things of His grace before He bestows them. G. Bowen.

To pray with the firm persuasion that God hears, and will, in His own time and way, answer, but to require no sensible impressions upon the mind at the time, in reply, is to ask in faith. But to make our comfort and the performance of our duty depend on the response which we may seem to receive is not the highest exercise of love to God or trust in Him. Communion with Christ does not require responsive influences upon our hearts in order to be real. N. Adams.—The answer may be delayed to test our faith, to sift our motives, to prepare us for the right reception of the answer; but let us never doubt that whatsoever we ask in Christ’s name will be granted unto us. And this faith, nothing wavering, is itself the test of the sincerity of our heart, and the Christ-conformed character of our petitions. A. Saphir.

Call unto Me and I will answer, saith the Lord. Find in this explicit Divine promise an inspired Old Testament commentary directly responsive to Paul’s sublime ascription (Eph. 3: 20), “to Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”

4-9. God’s pledge of restoration and rebuilding after captivity.** Verses 4 and 5 vividly depict the ruin and desolation of city and nation. “Houses thrown down” and the debris “filled with the dead bodies of men,” slain at the Chaldeans’ hands, yet according to Jehovah’s purpose, in punishment of Judah’s wickedness—these broken homes and this decimation by the sword were to be followed by the long banishment into a strange land. This was the great calamity, then near at hand, which the prophet announced.

But over against this was he bidden to promise a return from exile and a restoration to their home-land. Under a figure of the healing of one long and sorely diseased, God declares that He will at length bring to the nation health and cure. Then without figure He explicitly affirms that He will bring back Judah and Israel from captivity and build them again. Then their iniquities shall be pardoned and they shall be cleansed. And their name shall be “a joy, a praise, and an honor before all the nations of the earth;” who shall thus be taught the wonderful loving-kindness of Jehovah to men. In verses 10-13 the same glorious and rich promises continue to find utterance—promises oft repeated by other prophets, with larger particulars. Verses 14-18 intimate that only a partial and inconsiderable fulfilment of these grand and far-reaching pledges was realized upon the return from the seventy years of captivity, and onward until the coming of Christ. Around Him all these Old Testament promises cluster; to His person and work they point; in the establishment of His kingdom they are centred and are completely fulfilled. B.

6. The Divine treatment of sin.** “Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them.” Here, as in so many other Scriptures, the moral, political, social, and spiritual recovery of Israel is spoken of under the image of bodily healing. For all healings of the body are types and pledges of the better healing. If God so cares for the body, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the tomb, shall He not care for the soul, which is eternal? This verse 6 is a promise that the Divine treatment of sin shall be effectual. The Lord is Jehovah-rophi. He heals them that have need of healing. C.

Sin is man’s self-induced disease, unnatural, and self-incurable. Righteousness or rightness is wholeness, wholth, or health, which is the meaning of the Old Testament peace. This is wrought in the soul by God, and is the restoration of its nature as made originally in His image. This “health and cure” He is always able, willing, and glad to impart to those humble, repentant souls that trust in and call upon Him. B.

10,11. To the expressions common in this prophet to denote the peace and happiness of the people, are added here words of thanksgiving and praise to God. The people will not only be full of joy; they will also remember the great Giver of all their blessings with overflowing soul, adoring His goodness and mercy that endure forever. This indicates the richest spiritual blessings—the work of the Spirit of God upon their heart, and not merely the accumulation of worldly good. H. C.

11. The Lord is good, His mercy endureth forever.** Goodness belongs to nature and to Providence. It presides over all the resources of creation—opens the mine, and covers the field, and adorns the garden—pours out daily the treasures of its full horn into the hands of men. What goodness giveth, they gather. But Mercy belongs especially to the gospel; she is seen walking along the paths of patriarchs, prophets, and priests—in the tabernacle and in the temple, in worship and in teaching—giving them hints about the seed of the woman, and the sceptre of Israel, and the star of Jacob, and the Man of Sorrows, and the Lamb slain, and the fountain opened; and then, after this typical and prophetic course, Mercy shows us, at Bethlehem, Christ’s manger and cradle; and then, at Calvary, reveals the cross under which she stands. Stoughton.

Sacrifices of thanksgiving. Intermixed with searching and inspired doctrines and ordinances of religious sacrifice, we find in the Bible such expressions as the “sacrifices of thanksgiving,” the “sacrifices of praise,” and “sacrifices of joy.” If there is any paradox, it clearly belongs to that grand paradox which runs all through the Gospel, and its transforming work; the “service that is perfect freedom;” “as poor yet making many rich;” “having nothing, yet possessing all things.” That is, if the Church would fill out her rightful office, restore the waste places, and extend the kingdom of Christ in the world, she must restore first the Divine plan of faith working by love which God gave her; she must reaffirm the doctrine of stated, systematic and adequate sacrifices for that holy end; she must not cheat her children with any delusive dream of putting the cloak of Christ’s righteousness on themselves or others so long as the thick undergarment of their own selfishness and avarice clings close to them and is not rent apart and torn off; she must teach and train every child she baptizes to keep his eyes, his hands, his feet, and all his powers ever ready and intent to seek out and to occupy the occasions of self-denial for her honor and the glory of her crucified Head; and then it will come about, as the promises of God are true, under the wonder-working law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that a love for this kind of service will grow up, and a sacred passion for the Church’s honor will be kindled, such as will cast out the bondage of constraint, enthroning the gracious and royal law which is “ready to give and glad to distribute,” making of each disciple the “cheerful giver” whom the Lord loves. F. D. H.

12. 13. In these verses, when the prophet would set forth the blessed life that the restored people should enjoy, he drew a picture, not of city, but of country life; not of hard, exacting toil, but of healthful, peaceful occupation—the pastoral life of a quiet, beautiful land. It is a symbol of all healthful employ, and such employ shall be a further feature in the blessedness that is to be. C.—As a quiet pastoral life filled their highest ideal of peace, repose, and abundance—a fact due somewhat to the examples of the patriarchs and of David—so here this state of spiritual enjoyment and peace is clothed in these images. The contrast is made strong; in this very place, doomed to be so desolate as to have in it neither man nor any of his domestic animals—here shall yet be the dwellings of shepherds, with their flocks reposing most quietly. The last clause of verse 13 refers to the usual mode of counting their flocks—viz., causing them to pass under the hand of one who should number them. H. C.

14. I will perform that good thing which I have promised. The coming of the Messiah was that good thing which God had promised, which is therefore called in a peculiar manner, “The promise made unto the fathers” (Acts 13: 32), as being the greatest of all the promises, and that in which all the rest were comprehended. Bp. Beveridge.

15. The righteous Scion of David. Here is a great leading prediction, which enables us to interpret as to the time and mode in which the rest of the glorious predictions connected with it were to be fulfilled. We know full well who this righteous Scion was, and when we look at His work, we can translate all the figurative language into spiritual realities. We no longer go looking for Israel and Jerusalem in any mere local way, and the vineyards and cornlands and pastures of the restored people of God we understand to be only feeble indications of the spiritual satisfactions coming through Christ. This righteous Scion springs from David. According to the flesh, He is connected with a name suggestive of past days of prosperity and glory. David himself is emphatically to be reckoned as a righteous stock. That he fell into grievous backslidings is not to be denied; but we know his aspirations, his sighings and struggling after conformity with the law of God. Y.

15-18. The pith of the promise was that the Lord would bring forth that glorious Scion from the stock of David, His greater son, the Messiah, and make Him king forever on His throne over all the people of the Lord. But this promise affirms also the perpetual succession of the Levitical priesthood: “Neither shall the priests the Levites ever want a man before Me to offer burnt-offering,” etc. Zechariah and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews are authorized expounders of this remarkable prophecy. Zechariah taught (chap. 3) that after the captivity the priesthood was to be restored in its purity and beauty, and that the high-priest and his associates were men of typical significance, foreshadowing God’s “servant, the Branch,” who will “take away the iniquity of that land in one day”—thus “by one offering perfecting forever them that are sanctified” (Heb. 10: 14). Zechariah also taught in chap. 4, that through the priesthood the Lord would pour the oil of His grace upon His people; and in chap. 6, that the Branch (Messiah) should “build the temple of the Lord” and “be a priest upon His throne”—i.e., be both king and priest, thus uniting in Himself the functions of David and of Aaron. The Epistle to the Hebrews elaborates the great idea that Jesus Christ, after He had once offered a sacrifice for sins as the great High Priest of His people, “forever sat down at the right hand of God”—“a great High-Priest passed through the heavens,” “ever living to make intercession for them” (Heb. 10: 12; 4: 14; 7: 25, etc.). So complete are the appliances for the salvation of lost men. Well may the great apostle say, “And ye are complete in Him” (Col. 2: 10). In Him every want of their souls is met. H. C.

17. David shall never want a man. So long as Israel remained a kingdom, those of the line of David ruled over it; when that failed, Christ came in the flesh, who ruleth, and shall rule, over the Israel of God forever. Poole.—In a spiritual sense, the kingdom of Christ, the Son of David, has been for some time established over those whom the Apostle calls “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6: 16), and “the children of

Abraham” (Gal. 3:7); meaning thereby all true believers, whether of the Jews or of the Gentiles. And in the Church of Christ there hath been a constant and uninterrupted succession of persons appointed to perform the public offices of religion in the room of, although not taken out of the family of the priests, the Levites. And the perpetuity of this kingdom and this priesthood is, in the opinion of many learned expositors, looked upon as a full and authentic completion of the intention of this prophecy. Blayney.

17, 18. King and priest in perpetuity. The declarations of these verses come by a natural association after the declaration of His advent who is the righteous Scion of David. Kingship and priesthood in perpetuity—that is the general assurance; but what a difference between the assurance looked at from the point of view given by Jeremiah’s time and the point of view given by ours! We look back on the achievements of history, and then see how much more a prediction means than anything that could have been supposed possible at the time it was spoken.

The way in which the perpetuity is manifested. The king is one; the priest is one. Looking back, we are made to see this clearly. “Of His reign there shall be no end,” says Gabriel to Mary. Whatever wisdom, power, and beneficence are in Jesus, are in perpetual exercise. Death, which ends the authority of purely human kings, only enlarged and deepened the authority of Jesus. He not only claims perpetuity for His demands, but we have ample reason now to say that the claim is admitted. And as to priesthood, what more need be said than make a reference to the expositions of the priesthood of Jesus made in the Epistle to the Hebrews? It is the priesthood forever, according to the order of Melchisedec. What an abidingly helpful thought it should be that we look to a Mediator ever active in sympathy with human wants, ever understanding them, knowing them indeed far better that the subjects of them! All the externalities are gone—sacrifices of beasts, furnishings of the holy place, symbolic garments of the priests, symbolic ordinances of service; but the reality remains and must remain in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. The deepest evils of human life, the evils that cause all others, are swept away by the priesthood of Jesus. And so also the greatest goods of human life, those that are seminal and full of energy toward the production of other goods, come through the same priesthood. Compared with the possibilities of the future, the predictions of these verses are, indeed, only at the beginning of their fulfilment. Y.

17-26. Three of God’s covenants—that of royalty with David and his seed, that of the priesthood with Aaron and his seed, and that of peculiarity with Abraham and his seed—seemed to have been all broken and lost while the Captivity hasted; but it is here promised that, notwithstanding that interruption and discontinuance for a time, they shall all three take place again, and the true intents and meaning of them all shall be abundantly answered in the New Testament blessings, typified by those conferred on the Jews after their return out of captivity. H.

19-22. Here, as in chap. 31:35-37, the richest promises are confirmed by the strongest assurances. The Lord’s covenant of the day and of the night (see Gen. 1 and Ps. 136:8, 9), the Divine constitution of nature whereby the succession of day and night will continue while the world shall stand, is beautifully appropriated as the symbol and the pledge of this never-failing promise respecting the eternal kingship and priesthood of the Messiah. H. C.

The permanence of nature is an assurance of the permanence of grace. The same God rules in the physical and spiritual spheres. In the one He is not capricious and uncertain. Why should we fear His being so in the other? Night, tempest, winter—things dark and wild—do not set aside the eternal ordinances of beneficent nature. The blue sky survives the black cloud that hides it for a season only to reveal it the more clearly after shedding itself in thunder-showers. Why, then, should we think that the heavenly grace of God’s love should be less enduring? If the ordinances of nature fail, we may expect the same of the covenant of grace; but not till then, since both depend on the same Divine endurance.

The successions of nature are pledges of the successions of grace. Nature is ever changing, though changing according to uniform laws. In spiritual experience we meet with change. Neither of God’s kingdoms is a Chinese empire. Progress marks both; and progress means change. But the change, though it alters events, does not alter principles; it only develops them to fuller exercise. Do the changes of life make us fear the loss of God’s blessing? Let us remember that the changes in nature do not upset its laws. Our experience varies, but God’s love is changeless. He shows this love, however, rather by a succession of blessings than by maintaining present blessings unaltered. So is it in nature—day and