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The Joyful Return of the Exiles

At that time, says the L ord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.

Thus says the L ord:

The people who survived the sword

found grace in the wilderness;

when Israel sought for rest,

the L ord appeared to him from far away.

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

Again I will build you, and you shall be built,

O virgin Israel!

Again you shall take your tambourines,

and go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.

Again you shall plant vineyards

on the mountains of Samaria;

the planters shall plant,

and shall enjoy the fruit.

For there shall be a day when sentinels will call

in the hill country of Ephraim:

“Come, let us go up to Zion,

to the L ord our God.”

For thus says the L ord:

Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,

and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;

proclaim, give praise, and say,

“Save, O L ord, your people,

the remnant of Israel.”

See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,

and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,

among them the blind and the lame,

those with child and those in labor, together;

a great company, they shall return here.

With weeping they shall come,

and with consolations I will lead them back,

I will let them walk by brooks of water,

in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;

for I have become a father to Israel,

and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Hear the word of the L ord, O nations,

and declare it in the coastlands far away;

say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him,

and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.”

For the L ord has ransomed Jacob,

and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.

They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion,

and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the L ord,

over the grain, the wine, and the oil,

and over the young of the flock and the herd;

their life shall become like a watered garden,

and they shall never languish again.

Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,

and the young men and the old shall be merry.

I will turn their mourning into joy,

I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.

I will give the priests their fill of fatness,

and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty,

says the L ord.

Thus says the L ord:

A voice is heard in Ramah,

lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children;

she refuses to be comforted for her children,

because they are no more.

Thus says the L ord:

Keep your voice from weeping,

and your eyes from tears;

for there is a reward for your work,

says the L ord:

they shall come back from the land of the enemy;

there is hope for your future,

says the L ord:

your children shall come back to their own country.

Indeed I heard Ephraim pleading:

“You disciplined me, and I took the discipline;

I was like a calf untrained.

Bring me back, let me come back,

for you are the L ord my God.

For after I had turned away I repented;

and after I was discovered, I struck my thigh;

I was ashamed, and I was dismayed

because I bore the disgrace of my youth.”

Is Ephraim my dear son?

Is he the child I delight in?

As often as I speak against him,

I still remember him.

Therefore I am deeply moved for him;

I will surely have mercy on him,

says the L ord.

Set up road markers for yourself,

make yourself signposts;

consider well the highway,

the road by which you went.

Return, O virgin Israel,

return to these your cities.

How long will you waver,

O faithless daughter?

For the L ord has created a new thing on the earth:

a woman encompasses a man.

²³ Thus says the L ord of hosts, the God of Israel: Once more they shall use these words in the land of Judah and in its towns when I restore their fortunes:

“The L ord bless you, O abode of righteousness,

O holy hill!”

²⁴ And Judah and all its towns shall live there together, and the farmers and those who wander with their flocks.

I will satisfy the weary,

and all who are faint I will replenish.

²⁶ Thereupon I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me.

Individual Retribution

²⁷ The days are surely coming, says the L ord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. ²⁸And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the L ord. ²⁹In those days they shall no longer say:

“The parents have eaten sour grapes,

and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

³⁰ But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.

A New Covenant

³¹ The days are surely coming, says the L ord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the L ord. ³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the L ord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the L ord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the L ord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Thus says the L ord,

who gives the sun for light by day

and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,

who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—

the L ord of hosts is his name:

If this fixed order were ever to cease

from my presence, says the L ord,

then also the offspring of Israel would cease

to be a nation before me forever.

Thus says the L ord:

If the heavens above can be measured,

and the foundations of the earth below can be explored,

then I will reject all the offspring of Israel

because of all they have done,

says the L ord.

Jerusalem to Be Enlarged

³⁸ The days are surely coming, says the L ord, when the city shall be rebuilt for the L ord from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. ³⁹And the measuring line shall go out farther, straight to the hill Gareb, and shall then turn to Goah. ⁴⁰The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes, and all the fields as far as the Wadi Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the L ord. It shall never again be uprooted or overthrown.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Prophet here speaks more distinctly of a blessed issue, and shews that the punishment by which God had already chastised the people, and by which he was prepared to chastise the tribe of Judah, was wholly necessary, which he would give them as a medicine. For as long as we have set before us the wrath of God, we necessarily, as it has been already said, try to avoid it, because we wish well to ourselves, and endeavor to remove to a distance, as much as we can, whatever is adverse to us: hence the punishment which God inflicts is never pleasant to us, our sorrow in evils and adversities is never mitigated, nor do we quietly submit to God, unless we direct our minds to the fruit which distresses and chastisements bring forth. We now then perceive the object of the Prophet: the Jews always murmured and said, “Why does not God spare and forgive us? why does he not deal more gently with us?” The Prophet therefore shews, that God had a regard to the wellbeing of his people in chastising them; for had he indulged them in their sins, their pride and perverseness would have increased.

The intention then of these words is this, and it is for this end the Prophet speaks, — that the Jews might know that all their punishment, which would have been otherwise bitter and grievous, was a sort of medicine, by which their spiritual diseases were to be healed.

He therefore says, Hearing I have heard Ephraim, after having transmigrated, etc. The participle מתנודד, metnudad, is in Hithpael, and comes from נוד, nud, or from נדד nedad. Some render it, “transmigrating,” and others, “lamenting.” But נוד, nud, means to move, to wander, to migrate from one place to another; it means also to complain, to tell of adversities, though it is often applied to those whose object is to solace the miserable and the mournful. If any one prefers the rendering, “I have heard Ephraim lamenting,” I do not object, for there is a sufficient probability in its favor. But it may also be derived from נוד, nud, as well as from נדד nedad; the most suitable sense would then be, “after having moved into exile,” or literally, “after having transmigrated,” that is, after God had driven Ephraim, even the ten tribes, into exile. ³⁶³⁶ The idea of “transmigrating” is alone given by the Vulg., the other versions and the Targ. have “lamenting:” and the latter is more consonant with the context, and has been adopted by almost all modern commentators. It is used in Jeremiah 15:5, in the sense of being moved or affected for another, of sympathizing or condoling. It is there in its simple form, that is, in Kal. As it is here in Hithpael, its meaning is, self-condoling, or condoling himself, — an idea which is very expressive, and is more fully explained in the next verse. — Ed.

After Ephraim then had thus transmigrated, or had been driven into exile, he then began to say, Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastened, for I was an untamed bullock: Turn thou me and I shall be turned; for thou, Jehovah, art my God. ³⁷³⁷ This is no doubt the right rendering, and not, “Thou art Jehovah my God.” So in the first commandment, the version ought to be, “I Jehovah,” or, I the Lord, “am thy God.” The meaning is not, that he is Jehovah, but that he who is Jehovah is our God. — Ed. The Prophet, no doubt, as I said before, meant here to check the murmurs which prevailed among the Jews, who said, that God was too rigid and severe, he shews not only that they were worthy of the very grievous punishment they were suffering, but also that it was a testimony of God’s favor, that he thus intended to cleanse them from their sins; for they would have a hundred times grown putrid in their wickedness, had not God thus reduced them to a sound mind. He at the same time sets forth Ephraim as an example, that the Jews might resignedly follow their brethren, and not discontentedly bear their exile, seeing that it had already been profitable to their brethren. When therefore they perceived that their punishment was useful to the Israelites, and brought forth good fruit, they ought to have submitted themselves willingly to God, and not to have murmured against him for punishing them for their sins, but to have borne their exile as a paternal correction.

Then he says, “I have heard Ephraim,” — at what time? This circumstance ought to be especially noticed, it was after he had transmigrated. When they were quiet in the land, they were, as it follows, like untameable steers. The Prophets also use this mode of speaking, when they describe the Israelites before their dispersion; they call them fat and well fed oxen: affluence produced luxury, and luxury pride. Thus, then, they kicked, as it were, against God, according to what is said by Moses,

“My people having grown fat kicked.”
(Deuteronomy 32:15)

As they were such, it was necessary that they should be tamed. And to this refers the time that is mentioned: when Ephraim was forcibly driven from his own country, then he began to acknowledge his evils and to be touched with a penitent feeling; “Thou hast chastised me,” he says, “and I was instructed.” The verb יסר, iser, means to instruct as well as to chastise, and is applied to princes, counsellors, fathers, and magistrates. The word chastise is more restricted in Latin. But יסר iser, properly means to teach, and yet often it means to chastise, for that is one way of teaching or instructing. He then says that he was chastised, though in a different sense: in the first clause, when he says, “Thou hast chastised me,” he refers to the punishment by which God had humbled his people; and in the second clause he says, “I was instructed,” that is, “I begin now at length to become wise;” for it is the wisdom even of fools, not to become hardened under their calamities; for they who become hardened are altogether in a hopeless state. It is the chief part of wisdom to acknowledge what is right, and willingly to follow it; but, except we be willing to regard our own good, God will then chastise us. ³⁸³⁸     The Vulg. and the Targ. favor this view of a different sense of the same verb in the second clause. The Sept. retain the same meaning. There is no need of altering the sense; indeed, another sense does not so well comport with the passage. He says that God had chastised him, and that he was chastised as an untamed, or rather untrained steer or bullock, implying that he was compelled to bear the yoke, and also that he had been brought to submit to it: hence the prayer that follows, “turn,” or rather, restore, etc. The verb יסר means to correct rather than to chastise, even to correct by the rod, or by the goad; and then to teach as the effect of correction, —
   Thou hast corrected me;
Yea, I was corrected like a steer, not trained:
Restore thou me, and I shall be restored;
For thou, Jehovah, art my God.
   After a confession with regard to correction, a confession that intimates that it had its proper effect, a prayer for restoration seems suitable, and that prayer is founded on the fact that Jehovah was their God. — Ed.

When our diseases are healable, we turn to God; but the perversely wicked bite and champ the bridle, and contend with God’s judgment: But the Prophet here refers to the faithful alone; for punishment has not the same effect on all indiscriminately. God, indeed, calls all men by punishment to repentance, so that even the reprobate are without excuse when they harden their hearts, and profit not under the rod. But punishment is peculiarly useful to the faithful; for God not only scourges them, but also, by his Spirit, bends their minds to docility, so that they willingly suffer themselves to be corrected by him. Hence I said that this clause properly refers to the faithful, when the Prophet says that Ephraim was instructed, after having been warned by punishment, to turn himself to God.

He compares himself to an untameable steer; for steers are wanton before they are habituated to the yoke. Such also is the wantonness of men before God subdues them by various kinds of punishment, and not only subdues them, but renders them also tractable and submissive. Next week I shall lecture instead of Beza.

³⁶ The idea of “transmigrating” is alone given by the Vulg., the other versions and the Targ. have “lamenting:” and the latter is more consonant with the context, and has been adopted by almost all modern commentators. It is used in Jeremiah 15:5, in the sense of being moved or affected for another, of sympathizing or condoling. It is there in its simple form, that is, in Kal. As it is here in Hithpael, its meaning is, self-condoling, or condoling himself, — an idea which is very expressive, and is more fully explained in the next verse. — Ed.

³⁷ This is no doubt the right rendering, and not, “Thou art Jehovah my God.” So in the first commandment, the version ought to be, “I Jehovah,” or, I the Lord, “am thy God.” The meaning is not, that he is Jehovah, but that he who is Jehovah is our God. — Ed.

³⁸ The Vulg. and the Targ. favor this view of a different sense of the same verb in the second clause. The Sept. retain the same meaning. There is no need of altering the sense; indeed, another sense does not so well comport with the passage. He says that God had chastised him, and that he was chastised as an untamed, or rather untrained steer or bullock, implying that he was compelled to bear the yoke, and also that he had been brought to submit to it: hence the prayer that follows, “turn,” or rather, restore, etc. The verb יסר means to correct rather than to chastise, even to correct by the rod, or by the goad; and then to teach as the effect of correction, — Thou hast corrected me; Yea, I was corrected like a steer, not trained: Restore thou me, and I shall be restored; For thou, Jehovah, art my God. After a confession with regard to correction, a confession that intimates that it had its proper effect, a prayer for restoration seems suitable, and that prayer is founded on the fact that Jehovah was their God. — Ed.