Jeremiah 30:1

JEREMIAH 30

ALL ISRAEL RESTORED UNDER MESSIAH

This and the following three chapters are called by some "The Book of Consolation"; but for our study, it is just as well to consider the chapters independently as they appear in the text. While true enough that there is indeed a concentration in these four chapters of many glorious prophecies for Israel, these glorious prophecies are by no means limited to these chapters. Jeremiah 29:10-14 (of the previous chapter) is but one example.

Cheyne mentioned that passages akin to these four chapters also "occur in earlier chapters of Jeremiah 3:14-19; 16:14,15, and Jeremiah 23:3-8."[1]

There are three dates which are seriously proposed for these four chapters, the majority of current scholars seeming to prefer the tenth year of Zedekiah, near the end of the final siege of Jerusalem, circa 587 B.C., just before the collapse of the city.[2] Still others find a date late in the exile and, "Suppose that they were written by someone other than Jeremiah; but such theories lean heavily upon critical reconstructions of Isaiah which are based entirely upon unwarranted and unproved conclusions."[3] That type of "dating" Biblical books we reject as totally untrustworthy. A third date was proposed by Naegelsbach who dates the first two chapters here (Jeremiah 30 and Jeremiah 31), "as the oldest part of the whole Book of Jeremiah, along with Jeremiah 3-6."[4] We suggest that no one knows for sure exactly when various chapters in this prophecy were written, unless the text indicates it; and again, we raise the question, "What difference does it make anyway?"

Our own preference of a date is that which places these chapters shortly before the final capture of Jerusalem. It seems very appropriate that, "When the siege was drawing to an end, famine and pestilence were ravaging the city, its capture more and more evident every day, with all hope of rescue past, and Jeremiah himself in prison - that in this sad pressure of earthly troubles, Jeremiah bade his countrymen look courageously to the fulfillment of the high hopes expressed in these chapters,"[5]

These chapters speak of the perpetuity of Israel, the calling of the Gentiles, the amalgamation of Jew and Gentile alike under one New Covenant, the coming of Messiah, the Branch, the Son of David, the Mediator between God and man, Jehovah Our Righteousness, who as both Priest and King would bring a new age of prosperity to Israel. A comprehensive title for all four of these chapters, according to Smith, is "`The New Covenant,' the very name by which the Gospel is known in most languages, though we call it the New Testament."[6]

Jeremiah 30:1-3

"The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, Thus speaketh Jehovah, the God of Israel, saying Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. For, lo, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will turn again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith Jehovah; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it."

"Write all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book ..." (Jeremiah 30:2). We can find no grounds whatever for agreement with the usual scholarly proposition that this commandment regarding the placing of Jeremiah's prophecies in a book applied only to this chapter and perhaps two or three other chapters additionally. Do those chapters include "all the words that God spoke to Jeremiah?" No matter what men say, the answer to that is negative.

What we have here is exactly the same commandment found again in Jeremiah 36:2, where God said to Jeremiah:

"In the fourth year of Jehoiachim ... the word came from Jehovah to Jeremiah, saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day."

This passage, along with what is written here, indicates that all of Jeremiah's prophecies were carefully written down and preserved by him in a book. How else, do the scholars suppose we now possess his book, after so many centuries have fled away? The very existence of the book of Jeremiah in the sacred Hebrew Canon is the only proof needed that Jeremiah did what God commanded him to do. Of course, this glimpse of the truth plays havoc with all the speculative editors, redactors, and interpolators used in the imaginative guesses of Bible critics.

Keil mentioned a Dr. J. D. Michaelis who took the same view of these passages as the one taken here; and although Keil disagreed with him, he gave no reason whatever for doing so.[7]

"The days are coming ..." (Jeremiah 30:3). "These words look toward eschatological times. Jeremiah is contemplating the distant, not the near, future of the nation; and these words strike the keynote for the entire group of four chapters beginning here."[8]

Yes, there is a definite promise here of the return of Israel to "the land" which God gave to their fathers; but the real fulfillment of this came, not in the return of a few Jews to Jerusalem, but in the ingathering of Jews and Gentiles alike into the kingdom of heaven under the preaching of the Gospel of Christ.

"I will turn again the captivity of my people ..." (Jeremiah 30:3). "This expression in the Bible is sometimes used where no captivity of any kind is in view (Job 42:10; Ezekiel 16:53)."[9] In many passages, therefore, where this expression occurs, the meaning is, "I will reverse or restore the fortunes."[10] It was the "captivity" of Israel in their sins that was the principal concern of the Lord, as indicated by Jesus' use of similar words in Luke 4:18.

"My people Israel and Judah ..." (Jeremiah 30:3). Thompson was impressed with the use of both these designations here and thought that, "It indicates that both the southern and northern kingdoms of Israel were included in God's plans for the future."[11] However, the unification of "all Israel" in this passage has no reference whatever to the two "kingdoms." It is the New Israel which will accomplish the fulfillment of God's will in the future; and that Israel will not only include all of racial Israel, including both the northern tribes and the southern kingdom, but also the Gentiles as well.