Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Jeremiah 31:23-40
Sub-Part B. The Coming Days Will Introduce A Completely New Type Of Covenant Provided By YHWH, One That Is Written In The Heart And Will Thus Result In Changed Lives (Jeremiah 31:23).
This sub-part commences with the words, ‘Thus says YHWH of hosts, the God of Israel,' and a feature of it is the phrase ‘the days are coming, says YHWH, when --' (Jeremiah 31:27; Jeremiah 31:31; Jeremiah 31:38), with its emphasis being on the glorious future. We may analyse it as follows:
· The fortunes of Judah and its cities will be restored and they will rejoice in YHWH's holy habitation. Both town and country will rejoice together, for YHWH will satisfy all hearts (Jeremiah 31:23).
· ‘The days are coming, says YHWH, when', rather than being broken down and destroyed, both the house of Israel and the house of Judah will be watched over by YHWH and built up and planted, with individuals being seen as responsible for their own sins. In other words they will no longer be a nation with joint responsibility for the covenant and suffering accordingly, but a nation of individuals each accountable for themselves (Jeremiah 31:27).
· ‘The days are coming, says YHWH, when' He will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not one like the old covenant which they broke, but one written in their hearts so that He will be their God and they will be His people. And all will know YHWH and enjoy total forgiveness (Jeremiah 31:31).
· ‘Thus says YHWH.' The continuation of Israel is as certain as the arrival of the sun by day and of the moon and stars by night and as YHWH's control of the seas (Jeremiah 31:35).
· ‘Thus says YHWH.' The fact that Israel will not be cast off for what they have done is as certain as the fact that the heavens cannot be measured, and the foundations of the earth explored (Jeremiah 31:37).
· The days are coming, says YHWH, when' the city will be rebuilt for YHWH, and the whole area, even the unclean valley of Hinnom, will be sacred to Him. They will be established for ever (Jeremiah 31:38). In the final analysis this is clearly something that can only be possible in the eternal kingdom.
‘Thus says YHWH of hosts, the God of Israel,'
This phrase introduces the second subpart of Section 2 Part 1, and emphasises again that we have in it ‘the word of YHWH'.
“Yet again will they use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities,
When I will bring again their captivity,
YHWH bless you, O habitation of righteousness (or ‘justice'),
O mountain of holiness.”
Once the exile is over and YHWH has brought His people back to the land they will once again look to Mount Zion and exult in the presence of YHWH among them. The exile will have accomplished its purpose. They will rejoice in Him, and He will be their all, ‘dwelling' on His holy mountain (compare the vivid picture in Isaiah 4:5 where the everlasting future is in mind). However, as in Jeremiah 50:7 it is YHWH Himself Who is the ‘habitation of righteousness', designated as such by the nations, this must possibly be seen as the significance of the words here. Then the thought would be that as they look to the holy mountain they ‘see' Him dwelling there as ‘the habitation of righteousness'.
There can be no doubt that initially this would be the idea which would take up the minds of the returned exiles as they rejoiced at being back in the land with the assurance from Ezekiel that YHWH's heavenly Temple was among them (Ezekiel 40:1 to Ezekiel 43:12), even though they could not see it. All that they had was the altar built on the holy mount (Ezekiel 43:13), through which they could access that heavenly Temple. But it represented true worship. And they even set about building a Temple. Its foundations were laid. But the hardships of their lives began to press in on them so that they took their eyes off YHWH and His holy mountain and began to concentrate on more mundane things.
This is ever man's tendency. The glorious vision is lost in the hard practicalities. It was then that they neglected the restoration of the Temple (Haggai 2:9), with its consequent effect on their own spiritual lives. We might even begin to feel that the restoration was somehow failing. But we must remember that while this period might have appeared to be ‘a day of small things' to the exiles (Zechariah 4:10), as they struggled on in difficult surroundings, and that it may also appear so to us in our comfortable chairs, from Heaven's viewpoint the picture was wholly different. The earth was being shaken (Haggai 2:21), and the Davidic prince was being established (Haggai 2:23). God was moving mountains! Zerubbabel would act by YHWH's Spirit (Zechariah 4:6) and be the reducer of mountains of difficulties as the Temple was rebuilt (Zechariah 4:7; Zechariah 4:9). And this would eventually lead on to the rebuilding of Jerusalem as an independent city (Nehemiah) and then to the coming of an even greater Davidic prince Who would cause the heavens to open (Matthew 3:16), and would accomplish His purpose by being cut off (Daniel 9:25), something which would result in His ascending to a place of ‘all authority in Heaven and on earth' (Matthew 28:18; Hebrews 1:3). God would have broken through to man (Matthew 17:2 onwards; John 1:14). But it all began here with a motley group of returning refugees.
It is on the whole regularly God's way to work through sowing seeds rather than by dropping bombs. He starts with small beginnings and eventually produces a huge mustard tree. Even the coming of Jesus was but a blip in secular history, until suddenly everyone was saying, ‘where on earth has this huge body of Christians, that we see all around us, sprung up from?'
“And Judah and all its cities will dwell in it together,
The husbandmen, and those who go about with flocks.
For I have fully satisfied the weary soul,
And every sorrowful soul have I replenished.”
The spotlight now turns on returned Judah. Once again they will dwell in the land in safety and their restored cities will dwell there too, along with the farming communities and the shepherds. It is an idyllic picture combining civilisation and strength, safety and security, with pastoral pursuits. (The cities were the places where they could find refuge from marauders). God's people will be made up of all types, and all will be satisfied in soul, and replenished at heart. For He will be to them all that they need. Outwardly at least they will appear to be as they should have been from the beginning.
Upon this I awoke, and beheld,
And my sleep was sweet to me.”
And on this delightful thought Jeremiah awoke from his prophetic dream, and saw its fulfilment as one day becoming reality. And it made his sleep sweet to him. The bitterness of the past was, at least for the present, behind him.