Jeremiah 31:21

Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities. SET THEE UP WAY-MARKS - pillars to mark the road for the returning exile. Caravans set up pillars, or pointed heaps of stones, to mark the way through the desert against their return. So Israel is told by God to mark the way by which they went in leaving their country for exile; for by the same way they shall return. SET THINE HEART TOWARD THE HIGHWAY - (; )....

He describes what mercy would do, even that God would at length restore the captives and bring them back from exile to their own country. There was however mention made previously of his favor, that we may know that the people were restored for no other reason but because God had mercy on them. The Prophet then having pointed out the fountain of redemption, passes on now to the external effect, by which God proved that he was reconciled to his people. Hence he says, _set up for thee titles _ We must first understand why the Prophet speaks thus. When the Jews were led away into Chaldea, they thought that a return was closed up against them. Having then given up every concern for their country, they dwelt among foreign nations, as though they were dead to the land of Canaan. They knew that they had forfeited that land; but they did not understand what had been so often said to them by the...

21-26 The way from the bondage of sin to the liberty of God's children, is a high-way. It is plain, it is safe; yet none are likely to walk in it, unless they set their hearts towards it. They are encouraged by the promise of a new, unheard-of, extraordinary thing; a creation, a work of Almighty power; the human nature of Christ, formed and prepared by the power of the Holy Ghost: and this is here mentioned as an encouragement to the Jews to return to their own land. And a comfortable prospect is given them of a happy settlement there. Godliness and honesty God has joined: let no man think to put them asunder, or to make the one atone for the want of the other. In the love and favour of God the weary soul shall find rest, and the sorrowful shall find joy. And what can we see with more satisfaction than the good of Jerusalem, and peace upon Israel?...

Verse Jeremiah 31:21. _SET THEE UP WAYMARKS_] Alluding to stones, or _heaps of_ _stones_, which travellers in the desert set up to ascertain the way, that they may know how to return. Mark the way to Babylon: thither _ye shall certainly go_; but _from it_ ye shall as certainly _return_....

The religious character of the restoration of the ten tribes. Chastisement brought repentance, and with it forgiveness; therefore God decrees their restoration. Jeremiah 31:15 Ramah, mentioned because of its nearness to Jerusalem, from which it was distant about five miles. As the mother of three tribes, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh, Rachel is regarded as the mother of the whole ten. This passage is quoted by Matthew (marginal reference) as a type. In Jeremiah it is a poetical figure representing in a dramatic form the miserable condition of the kingdom of Ephraim devastated by the sword of the Assyrians. Jeremiah 31:16 Rachel’s work had been that of bearing and bringing up children, and

EXPOSITION JEREMIAH 31:1 The promise of Jeremiah 30:22 is expressly declared to apply to both sections of the nation. Jehovah thus solemnly declares his purpose of mercy, and dwells with special Madness on the happy future of Ephraim. JEREMIAH 31:2 THE PEOPLE which were LEFT OF THE SWORD, etc.; literally, _the people of those left of the sword. _The expression clearly implies that the Jews at the time spoken of had escaped, or were about to escape, in some great battle or some other kind of slaughter. Hence the finding grace in the wilderness cannot refer to the sequel of the passage through the Red Sea, an

SET THEE UP WAY MARKS, MAKE THEE HIGH HEAPS,.... Of stones, raised up as pillars, or like pyramids; or upright, as palm trees, which signification the word z has; to be marks and signs, to know the way again upon a return. The Targum is, "O congregation of Israel, remember the right works of thy fathers; pour out supplications; in bitterness set thy heart.'' And so the Vulgate Latin version interprets the last clause, "put on bitternesses", without any sense; so Cocceius. The design of the words is to put the Jews upon thoughts of returning to their own land, and to prepare for it; SET THINE HEART TOWARDS THE HIGHWAY, [EVEN] THE WAY [WHICH] THOU WENTEST; from Judea to Babylon, or into other countries; think of going the same way back again; for, as there was a highway from Judea, there is one to it; let thine heart be upon returning that way. Jarchi reads, "the way which I went"; that...

Jeremiah 31:1. _At the same time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people._ During the Israelites' banishment to Babylon, God's covenant with them had been as it were in abeyance, but in this promise of their restoration he brings it to the front again, and he gives a peculiarly gracious turn to it: «I will be the God of all the families of Israel.» What a mercy it is to have a family God, and to have our whole family in Christ! Brethren, you have a family Bible, and you have, I hope, a family altar; may your whole family belong to God! Jeremiah 31:2. _Thus saith the LORD, the people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest._ Pharaoh tried to kill

CHAPTER 31 _ 1. The home-going of the nation (Jeremiah 31:1) _ 2. The joy of salvation (Jeremiah 31:10) 3. The preceding tribulation, sorrow and repentance (Jeremiah 31:15) 4. Assurance (Jeremiah 31:22) 5. The new covenant (Jeremiah 31:27) 6. The everlasting nation (Jeremiah 31:35) Jeremiah 31

Jeremiah hears Rachel (the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, Genesis 30:24; Genesis 35:16 ff.) weeping at (her grave near) Ramah, for her children, the northern exiles. He bids her refrain, in the certainty of their restoration. Their penitence is described (Jeremiah 31:18 f.). Yahweh expresses wonder (Jeremiah 31:20) at His own enduring love for this very precious son, this child of delight; He is moved to deep emotion, and, in spite of all, cannot abandon him. Let Israel indicate and note the way of return (Jeremiah 31:21), and persist in it ...