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| This is the New King James text of the passages. |
Jeremiah 30-31 Listen 
Restoration for Jacob's people (Jeremiah 30)
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 “Thus speaks the LORD God of Israel, saying: ‘Write in a book for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you.
3 For behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, “that I will bring back from captivity My people Israel and Judah,’ says the LORD. ‘And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.’ ”
4 ¶ Now these are the words that the LORD spoke concerning Israel and Judah.
5 ¶ “For thus says the LORD:
‘We have heard a voice of trembling,
Of fear, and not of peace.
6 Ask now, and see,
Whether a man is ever in labor with child?
So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins
Like a woman in labor,
And all faces turned pale?
7 Alas! For that day is great,
So that none is like it;
And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble,
But he shall be saved out of it.
8 “For it shall come to pass in that day,’
Says the LORD of hosts,
‘That I will break his yoke from your neck,
And will burst your bonds;
Foreigners shall no more enslave them.
9 But they shall serve the LORD their God,
And David their king,
Whom I will raise up for them.
10 “Therefore do not fear, O My servant Jacob,’ says the LORD,
‘Nor be dismayed, O Israel;
For behold, I will save you from afar,
And your seed from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return, have rest and be quiet,
And no one shall make him afraid.
11 For I am with you,’ says the LORD, “to save you;
Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you,
Yet I will not make a complete end of you.
But I will correct you in justice,
And will not let you go altogether unpunished.’
12 ¶ “For thus says the LORD:
‘Your affliction is incurable,
Your wound is severe.
13 There is no one to plead your cause,
That you may be bound up;
You have no healing medicines.
14 All your lovers have forgotten you;
They do not seek you;
For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy,
With the chastisement of a cruel one,
For the multitude of your iniquities,
Because your sins have increased.
15 Why do you cry about your affliction?
Your sorrow is incurable.
Because of the multitude of your iniquities,
Because your sins have increased,
I have done these things to you.
16 “Therefore all those who devour you shall be devoured;
And all your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity;
Those who plunder you shall become plunder,
And all who prey upon you I will make a prey.
17 For I will restore health to you
And heal you of your wounds,’ says the LORD,
“Because they called you an outcast saying:
‘This is Zion;
No one seeks her.” ’
18 ¶ “Thus says the LORD:
‘Behold, I will bring back the captivity of Jacob’s tents,
And have mercy on his dwelling places;
The city shall be built upon its own mound,
And the palace shall remain according to its own plan.
19 Then out of them shall proceed thanksgiving
And the voice of those who make merry;
I will multiply them, and they shall not diminish;
I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.
20 Their children also shall be as before,
And their congregation shall be established before Me;
And I will punish all who oppress them.
21 Their nobles shall be from among them,
And their governor shall come from their midst;
Then I will cause him to draw near,
And he shall approach Me;
For who is this who pledged his heart to approach Me?’ says the LORD.
22 “You shall be My people,
And I will be your God.’ ”
23 Behold, the whirlwind of the LORD
Goes forth with fury,
A continuing whirlwind;
It will fall violently on the head of the wicked.
24 The fierce anger of the LORD will not return until He has done it,
And until He has performed the intents of His heart.
In the latter days you will consider it.
This chapter takes a different turn. Notice that Jeremiah doesn't speak of the "House of David" here, a term usually used when the prophecy concerns just Judah. Instead, he talks in terms of Jacob, the father of all the Israelites including the northern kingdom that fell to the Assyrians in 721 B.C. Also note, he doesn't just prophesy a return to the land in this prophecy, but a world-wide reign from the throne of David and by King David himself. The term "in that day" along with the accompanying "reigning" statements clearly place the fulfillment of this prophecy in the future during the millennium.
So...when things get bad during the tribulation, how bad are they gonna be? I find Jeremiah's colorful description of the hard times of the tribulation amusing in verse 6, "Ask now, and see, Whether a man is ever in labor with child? So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins Like a woman in labor, And all faces turned pale?" All of the men in pain as though they were having babies - now that's bad! As a matter of fact, Jeremiah frequently referenced the wrath of God using that analogy; he did so also in 4:31; 6:24; 13:21; 22:23; 49:24; 50:43.
That leads us to the identification of the period in verse 7 known as "Jacob’s trouble." This period of trial for Israel is certainly a reference to the tribulation, the seven-year period leading up to the Battle of Armageddon (Revelation 19:11-21, see notes) followed by the beginning of the millennium as clearly seen by the reference to the rule of David in verse 9. In fact, a resurrected David is undoubtedly referenced here, a fact seen in several other passages of scripture. See the article to the right entitled "King David's role in the millennium, or click here to see the article in full screen. We see a time of peace in verse 10, "Jacob shall return, have rest and be quiet, And no one shall make him afraid." In verse 16 there is the assurance that all of Israel's enemies will be destroyed. Then, in verses 17-24 we observe the complete restoration of Israel's autonomous rule under the Messiah. It's interesting that the description of the Messiah in verse 21 identifies him as having the duel roles of civil leader and high priest. Indeed, that is exactly what we know the Messiah will be.
For more information regarding this period of time, click here to see the notes on Matthew 24.
There's coming a day...the millennium (Jeremiah 31:1-30)
1 “At the same time,” says the LORD, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”
2 ¶ Thus says the LORD:
“The people who survived the sword
Found grace in the wilderness—
Israel, when I went to give him rest.”
3 The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying:
“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.
4 Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt,
O virgin of Israel!
You shall again be adorned with your tambourines,
And shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoice.
5 You shall yet plant vines on the mountains of Samaria;
The planters shall plant and eat them as ordinary food.
6 For there shall be a day
When the watchmen will cry on Mount Ephraim,
“Arise, and let us go up to Zion,
To the LORD our God.’ ”
7 ¶ For thus says the LORD:
“Sing with gladness for Jacob,
And shout among the chief of the nations;
Proclaim, give praise, and say,
‘O LORD, save Your people,
The remnant of Israel!’
8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country,
And gather them from the ends of the earth,
Among them the blind and the lame,
The woman with child
And the one who labors with child, together;
A great throng shall return there.
9 They shall come with weeping,
And with supplications I will lead them.
I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters,
In a straight way in which they shall not stumble;
For I am a Father to Israel,
And Ephraim is My firstborn.
10 “Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
And declare it in the isles afar off, and say,
‘He who scattered Israel will gather him,
And keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’
11 For the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
And ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he.
12 Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion,
Streaming to the goodness of the LORD—
For wheat and new wine and oil,
For the young of the flock and the herd;
Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden,
And they shall sorrow no more at all.
13 “Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance,
And the young men and the old, together;
For I will turn their mourning to joy,
Will comfort them,
And make them rejoice rather than sorrow.
14 I will satiate the soul of the priests with abundance,
And My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, says the LORD.”
15 ¶ Thus says the LORD:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
Lamentation and bitter weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children,
Refusing to be comforted for her children,
Because they are no more.”
16 ¶ Thus says the LORD:
“Refrain your voice from weeping,
And your eyes from tears;
For your work shall be rewarded, says the LORD,
And they shall come back from the land of the enemy.
17 There is hope in your future, says the LORD,
That your children shall come back to their own border.
18 “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself:
‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised,
Like an untrained bull;
Restore me, and I will return,
For You are the LORD my God.
19 Surely, after my turning, I repented;
And after I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh;
I was ashamed, yes, even humiliated,
Because I bore the reproach of my youth.’
20 Is Ephraim My dear son?
Is he a pleasant child?
For though I spoke against him,
I earnestly remember him still;
Therefore My heart yearns for him;
I will surely have mercy on him, says the LORD.
21 “Set up signposts,
Make landmarks;
Set your heart toward the highway,
The way in which you went.
Turn back, O virgin of Israel,
Turn back to these your cities.
22 How long will you gad about,
O you backsliding daughter?
For the LORD has created a new thing in the earth—
A woman shall encompass a man.”
23 ¶ Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “They shall again use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I bring back their captivity: ‘The LORD bless you, O home of justice, and mountain of holiness!’
24 And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all its cities together, farmers and those going out with flocks.
25 For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”
26 ¶ After this I awoke and looked around, and my sleep was sweet to me.
27 ¶ “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast.
28 And it shall come to pass, that as I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to throw down, to destroy, and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD.
29 In those days they shall say no more:
“The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
And the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.
In chapter 30 (see above), Jeremiah started talking about the condition of Israel during the millennium. Chapter 31 is a continuation of that theme. For more information regarding the millennium, see the notes on Revelation 20:1-14.
The reference to Ephraim here is worth explanation. You will recall that Ephraim was the younger son of Joseph who got the elder blessing from Jacob against Joseph's wishes back in Genesis 48:5-22 (see notes). Ol' Manasseh (his brother) wasn't crazy about it either. With Joseph off doing Egypt stuff, Jacob adopted the boys. Since the Levites didn't get a possession of territory going into Canaan, add Ephraim and Manasseh in place of Joseph and Levi, and you still come out with twelve tribes going into Canaan. Samaria was located within the territory inhabited by Ephraim. The ark of the covenant rested in Ephraim until David moved it to Jerusalem. Samaria became the seat of the Northern Kingdom (10 tribes) when Jeroboam split off after Solomon's death back in I Kings 12 (see notes). Therefore, the Northern Kingdom is sometimes referred to as Ephraim. The leadership of the Northern Kingdom (Ephraim) never served God and had no consistent royal family. As a matter of fact, eight different families were represented by a king over the Northern Kingdom, beginning with Jeroboam and ending with Hoshea.
Jeremiah's prophecies in this chapter concern not just Judah, but Ephraim (aka. Israel aka. Northern Kingdom). They had fallen to the Assyrians in 721 B.C., 135 years before. After 20 rough years of abuse from Egypt and Babylon, Jerusalem finally completely fell to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. under Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah's talking about everybody coming home and Israel's king ruling the world; that's the millennium, and Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Although they did return to the land of Israel from exile beginning in 535 B.C., they did not have their own king; they were still subject to the Persians (Ezra 1, see notes).
Verse 1 clearly establishes the millennium proposition when it states, "'At the same time,' says the LORD, 'I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.'" Since we know that this prophecy has never been fulfilled since the time of Jeremiah's record, this, of necessity, speaks of the reign of the Messiah during the millennium.
Verse 8 mentions a regathering of Jacob's descendants "from the ends of the earth." Verse 11 goes on to say, "For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, And ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he." Make no mistake about it: God oversaw the destruction of rebellious Israel/Judah, and he will likewise oversee the restoration of the same - the point of verse 28, "And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD."
At the end of all of this restoration talk, Jeremiah uses verses 29-30 to deal with the common excuse in Jeremiah's day for the predicament Judah was in. Their woes, they thought, were as a result of sinning forefathers when they could be heard saying in verse 29, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children’s teeth are set on edge." They insisted that they were being punished solely because of the sins of their forefathers and not their own. This was an old saying (a proverb, but not one of Solomon's). It was a saying of conventional wisdom among these sinning Jews, even though it was not true in this situation - at least not to the extent to which they were applying it. Let's be clear about the incorrect nature of their assertion. They had absolved themselves of personal responsibility for God's wrath in the imminent fall of Jerusalem; they claimed it happened because of the sins of their forefathers - not their own. Israel/Judah/Jerusalem had incorrectly applied the message of Exodus 20:4-5 (see notes) and Deuteronomy 5:9 (see notes).
Let's take a look at the words of Exodus 20:4-5 that were being incorrectly adopted by these exiles:
Exodus 20:4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
Exodus 20:5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Under the provisions of the New Covenant, no one will be able to assert that they are being punished for the sins of their ancestors. Incidentally, Ezekiel deals with this legitimacy of using this very same proverb in Ezekiel 18:1-3 (see notes), but with the exiles over in Babylon. They also blamed their forefathers.
Incidentally, Matthew quotes verse 15 here and declares the the slaying of the babies after the birth of Jesus was a fulfillment in Matthew 2:17 (see notes).
The new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-40)
31 ¶ “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—
32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
35 Thus says the LORD,
Who gives the sun for a light by day,
The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night,
Who disturbs the sea,
And its waves roar
(The LORD of hosts is His name):
36 “If those ordinances depart
From before Me, says the LORD,
Then the seed of Israel shall also cease
From being a nation before Me forever.”
37 ¶ Thus says the LORD:
“If heaven above can be measured,
And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath,
I will also cast off all the seed of Israel
For all that they have done, says the LORD.
38 ¶ “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, that the city shall be built for the LORD from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.
39 The surveyor’s line shall again extend straight forward over the hill Gareb; then it shall turn toward Goath.
40 And the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields as far as the Brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the LORD. It shall not be plucked up or thrown down anymore forever.”
These are very important verses to understanding the Old Testament relationship to the New Testament. Paul quotes these verses (31-34) in Hebrews 8:8-12 (see notes). The new covenant consists of an inward law written onto one's heart rather than an external law. It's a description of New Testament salvation in Christ. The complete fulfillment of the covenant does not take place until every Jew is saved under its conditions - the conditions that will exist the first day of the millennium. So, while we are today saved by its conditions, the whole nation of Israel (per the covenant) will not be saved by those conditions until day one of the millennium.
Let's take a closer look at the verses (31-34) which establish the New Covenant:
31 Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—
32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.
Now, let's take a close look at the components of this New Covenant:
You will notice that the provisions of verse 33 are those that we, as Believers, enjoy today, the emphasis that Paul makes in Hebrews 8:8-12 (see notes). Our relationship with God is through Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and comes from within by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our salvation, however, does not constitute a fulfillment of the New Covenant. When everyone in Israel has this personal relationship by faith, then the covenant will be fulfilled; that's the case entering the millennium.
The rebuilding of the nation of Israel and specifically Jerusalem is seen in verses 35-39.