Jeremiah 3:17 - Exposition

Jerusalem ' s spiritual glory . With Jeremiah's description, comp. that of Ezekiel," The name of the city from that day shall be, "The Lord is there" ( Ezekiel 48:35 ). This gives us the positive aspect of the Messianic period (comp. on verse 16). Jerusalem shall be the spiritual center of the universe, because it is pervaded by the presence of the Most High (comp. Isaiah 4:5 ). May we explain with Dr. Payne Smith, "Jerusalem, i . e . the Christian Church?" Only if the provisional character of the existing Church be kept well in view. All the nations ; i . e . all except the chosen people. The word for "nations" ( goyim ) is that often rendered "heathen." To the name ; or, because of the name , i . e . because Jehovah has revealed his name at Jerusalem. The phrase occurs again with a commentary in Joshua 9:9 , "Thy servants are come because of the name of Jehovah thy God, for we have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Egypt." But we must not suppose that "name" is equivalent to "revelation;" rather, there is here an ellipsis—"because of the name" is equivalent to "because of the revelation of the name ," or better still, " … of the Name ." The "Name of Jehovah" is in fact a distinct hypostasis in the Divine Being; no mere personification of the Divine attributes (as the commentators are fond of saying), but (in the theological sense) a Person. The term, "Name of such and such a God,:' is common to Hebrew with Phoenician religion. In the famous inscription of Eshmunazar, King of Zidon, Ashtoreth is called "Name of Baal;" and to whichever proper name the religious term Name may be attached, it means a personal existence in the Divine nature, specially related to the world of humanity; or, to use the language of Hengstenberg, the bridge between the latter and the transcendent heights of God as he is in himself. In short, the Name of Jehovah is virtually identical with the Logos of St. John, or the second Person in the blessed Trinity. Hence the personal language now and again used of this Name in the Old Testament, e.g. Isaiah 30:27 , "The Name of Jehovah cometh from far … his lips are full of indignation;" Isaiah 26:8 ," The desire of our soul was to thy Name;" Isaiah 59:19 , "So shall they fear the Name of Jehovah from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun." Comp. also Proverbs 18:10 ; men do not run for safety to an abstract idea. Nor will all nations in the latter days resort either to a localized or to a spiritually diffused Jerusalem in the future, to gratify a refined intellectual curiosity. Neither shall they walk , etc.; i . e . the Israelites of the latter days; not the "nations" before mentioned (as Hengstenberg). The phrase occurs eight times in Jeremiah, and is always used of the Israelites. The word rendered "imagination" is peculiar ( sheriruth ). As Hengstenberg has pointed out, it occurs independently only in a single passage ( Deuteronomy 29:18 ); for in Psalms 81:13 , it is plainly derived, not from the living language, from which it had disappeared, but from the written. (The close phraseological affinity between the Books of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah has been already indicated.) The rendering of the Authorized Version, which is supported by the Septuagint, Peshito, Targum, is certainly wrong; the Vulgate has pravitatum ; the etymological meaning is "stubbornness." The error of the versions may perhaps have arisen out of a faulty inference from Psalms 81:13 , where it stands in parallelism to "their counsels."