Jeremiah 3:22

Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God. RETURN, YE BACKSLIDING CHILDREN - Yahweh's renewed invitation (; ) and their immediate response. HEAL - forgive (; ; , "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them, freely"). BEHOLD, WE COME UNTO THEE - rather, 'in obedience to thee;' literally, for thee (Rosenmuller.)...

God here exhorts the Israelites to repent, that by their example he might move the Jews. The benefit of what is here taught might indeed have reached to the miserable captives and exiles; but as Jeremiah was especially the teacher of his own nation, he labored chiefly no doubt for their advantage, as we have before stated. God then here declares, that he would be reconcilable to the Israelites, how grievously soever they had sinned, he afterwards introduces them as answering, _Behold, _we return, or we shall _come to thee: _for the Prophet speaks here of the future conversion of the ten tribes. It is then a dialogue between God and the Israelites. God himself freely invites them to repent: _Return, _he says, _ye rebellious children; _and then he promises to be a physician to heal their diseases: _I will heal thy transgressions; _that is, I will blot out thy sins, and absolve thee from gu...

21-25 Sin is turning aside to crooked ways. And forgetting the Lord our God is at the bottom of all sin. By sin we bring ourselves into trouble. The promise to those that return is, God will heal their backslidings, by his pardoning mercy, his quieting peace, and his renewing grace. They come devoting themselves to God. They come disclaiming all expectations of relief and succour from any but the Lord. Therefore they come depending upon him only. He is the Lord, and he only can save. It points out the great salvation from sin Jesus Christ wrought out for us. They come justifying God in their troubles, and judging themselves for their sins. True penitents learn to call sin shame, even the sin they have been most pleased with. True penitents learn to call sin death and ruin, and to charge upon it all they suffer. While men harden themselves in sin, contempt and misery are their portion: f...

Verse Jeremiah 3:22. _RETURN, YE BACKSLIDING CHILDREN_] This they gladly receive, and with one voice make their confession to him: "Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art Jehovah our God;" and thence to the end of the chapter, show the reasons why they return unto God. 1. Because he is the true God. 2. Because the idols did not profit them: they could give no help in time of trouble. 3. Because it is the prerogative of God alone to give salvation. 4. Because they had no kind of prosperity since they had abandoned the worship of their Maker. And this was not only their case, but it was the case of their _forefathers_, who all suffered in consequence of their idolatry and disobedience. 5. These reasons are concluded with a hearty confession of sin, at the thought of which they are _confounded_; for the remembrance of their sin was griev

Yahweh’s answer to their prayer in Jeremiah 3:21 is immediately followed by their acceptance of the offer of divine mercy. FOR - Rather, because ... This profession of faith gives the reason why they return to Yahweh. The whole description is most graphically conceived. The people weeping upon the hills: God’s gracious voice bidding them return: the glad cry of the penitents exclaiming that they come: the profession of faith won from them by the divine love; these form altogether a most touching picture of a national repentance....

EXPOSITION That this chapter (to which the first four verses of Jeremiah 4:1. ought to have been attached) belongs to the time of Josiah seems to be proved by Jeremiah 3:6, and the years immediately following the reformation are not obscurely referred to in Jeremiah 3:4, Jeremiah 3:10. Naegelsbach gives a striking distribution of its contents. The general subject is a call to "return." First, the prophet shows that, in spite of Deuteronomy 24:1, etc; a return is possible ...

RETURN, YE BACKSLIDING CHILDREN,.... This is the call of the Jews to repentance in the latter day; Jeremiah 3:14. AND I WILL HEAL YOUR BACKSLIDINGS; that is, I will forgive your sins. Sins are the diseases of the soul, and the wounds made in it; and pardoning them is healing them. So the Targum, "I will forgive you when ye return;'' see Psalms 103:3, this is done by the application of the blood of Christ, the only physician, and whose blood is the balm that heals every wound; and this springs from the love of God, and his free favour to his people, even the riches of his grace and abounding mercy through Christ; and is the great motive and inducement, and what gives the greatest encouragement to return unto the Lord,...

In this chapter, the sin of God's people is put in the strongest possible light. The figure used may be even said to be a coarse one, but man's sin is itself a coarse thing. The thoughts suggested in this chapter are not what the delicate might desire; but then there is no delicacy in sin. Jeremiah 3:1. _They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted?_ God himself seems here to be at a non plus. His people had gone away from him, they had acted unfaithfully to him, they had joined themselves unto other gods. The case was a very difficult one. If the Lord takes these people back again, will it not look like putting a premium upon sin? That is just the question that is constantly being raised. If God freely forgives great sinners, will it not look as if he treated

THE CALL TO REPENTANCE AND JUDGMENT ANNOUNCED (3:6-6:30) CHAPTER 3 _ 1. The contrast between backslidden Israel and treacherous Judah (Jeremiah 3:6) _ 2. The call to return and the promised glory (Jeremiah 3:12) 3. The future true repentance predicted and anticipated (Jeremiah 3:19) Jeremiah 3:6. The message which begins with the sixth verse was given to Jeremiah during the reign of Josiah. There is then, first of all, a contrast between Israel (the ten tribes) and her sister Judah. (Compare with Ezekiel 23:

JEREMIAH 3:19 TO JEREMIAH 4:4. A DIALOGUE OF YAHWEH'S GRACE. This directly continues Jeremiah 3:5, the I of Jeremiah 3:19 being emphatically contrasted with the thou of Jeremiah 3:5. Yahweh expresses His desire (Jeremiah 3:19 _mg._) to give Judah, though a daughter, a son's portion in the best of lands (_mg._ 2)_,_ but Judah (here called Israel in narrower sense, Jeremiah 3:20