Jeremiah 33 - Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal and Homiletical - Bible Commentaries

Verses 1-3

II. CHAPTER 33
Promise of the most glorious future given at a moment when the destruction of Jerusalem by its own inhabitants in the interest of defence was already begun
1. Brief transition: Summons to new prayer in the sense of Jeremiah 32:16-25, and Promise of a Hearing

Jeremiah 33:1-3

1 Moreover the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he

was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying,

2 Thus saith Jehovah, who does it,

Jehovah, who prepares it, to complete it,—Jehovah is His Name,

3 Call upon Me, and I will answer thee,

And will announce to thee great and hidden things that thou knewest not.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The prophet, still in the court of the prison, receives a second time a revelation of an exceedingly comforting character. It is introduced by some words of Jehovah, which set forth His power to carry out his thoughts (Jeremiah 33:2), as well as His readiness to afford the prophet on his request a glimpse into the great facts of the future, which the Lord intends to accomplish, notwithstanding that they are now regarded as impossible (Jeremiah 33:3). Some would consider these words a later addition, because they cannot distinguish Jeremiah’s style in them (Graf). But Graf himself has shown in opposition to Movers and Hitzig that the style of the alleged Isaiah II. is not seen in these verses, that rather the main elements (הֵכִין, קָרָא of calling upon God, יהוה שׁמו) accord well with the style of Jeremiah. I add that יָצַר, in the sense of “forming thoughts,” is found parallel with חשב מחשׁבה in Jeremiah 18:11. The expression עֹשָׂהּ, as far as the meaning of the verb goes, has nothing specific about it, and the neutral signification of the feminine suffix is not foreign to the style of Jeremiah 4:28; Jeremiah 13:17.—On גְּדֹלוֹת, etc., vid. infra.—What might most make the impression of a style differing from that of Jeremiah is this Introduction in itself, and especially the peculiar turn of Jeremiah 33:3 : Call upon me, and I will answer, etc.—But we must here well observe that these words are occasioned by the prayer of the prophet in Jeremiah 32:16-25. The prophet had indeed already received an answer to this prayer in Jeremiah 32:26-44. But he is here admonished to approach the Lord more frequently with such petitions. The God, who has the power to carry out His determinations, is ready and willing to afford him a glance into His great thoughts of the future. A proof of this immediately follows. Consequently the verses, Jeremiah 33:1-3, form a bridge of connection between chh. 32 and 33. In the admonition to pray more frequently they point back to the previous context and prepare by the promise I will announce, etc., for the following disclosures.

Jeremiah 33:1-3. Moreover the word … knewest not.—Who does it. This passage both in the thought and the words reminds us of Isaiah 46:11.—Jehovah is his name. Comp. Jeremiah 10:16; Jeremiah 31:35; Jeremiah 32:18. In the name of Jehovah lies the guarantee of His action. For what He is called He is.—And I will announce. It might here be asked whether the prophet is promised an insight into the inner connection of the divine arrangements (in the same sense as הִֹגִּיד is used of the solution of riddles, Judges 14:12-14), or only a view of facts. I believe that the two are to be connected. The innermost grounds of the divine action are a secret to the prophet as to the angels (1 Peter 1:11-12). When however the Lord shows the prophet a chain of facts, it can not only be evident to him what will happen, but also how one thing follows from another. This may have taken place in only a limited degree, yet it furnished the prophet with a bridge of connection between the past and the present. Hidden things, בצרות. In Isaiah 48:6 we read וּנְצֻרוֹת וְלֹא יְדַעְתָּם. The resemblance is unmistakable. The whole connection of the passage renders it incredible that the words in Isaiah are a quotation, they must therefore be so here. The reading here, בְּצֻרוֹת, may be due to a critical error (ב for נ), especially as the word does not occur elsewhere in this altered sense. It is always used elsewhere of walls or cities (Numbers 13:28; Deuteronomy 1:28; Deuteronomy 9:1; Joshua 14:12, etc.). Meanwhile it is also conceivable that the prophet may have written בְּצֻרוֹת. He frequently modifies the words which he quotes. This might take place the more easily as the related passage, Isaiah 37:26, may at the same time have hovered before his mind. בְּצֻדוֹת is not in itself inappropriate, as it may signify “secluded, separate, inaccessible.”

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. On Jeremiah 32:3. “An effect of anger and a procedure almost like that of Ahab with the prophet Micah. The same spirit prevails now-a-days. For without entering on an investigation, with what right or reason men are found who often in pretty general expressions in a call to repentance, borrow from the prophet all sorts of judicial threatening and point to this or that city, we cannot avoid seeing why they are always put in arrest, viz.: for this cause, ‘Why dost thou prophesy what we do not like to hear?’ When one is sure of his cause, a noble disdain of such people would be the best means to use against them. But men cannot bear a bad conscience and threatenings of all sorts together, and the fear that it may be true has the foolish effect, that they cause the bearers of such unpleasant tidings to come to a bad end, in order to affright others from coming with similar messages.” Zinzendorf.

2. On Jeremiah 32:7 sqq. “Fundatur in hoc textu locus classicus de contractibus emtionis et venditionis, quos improbant Anabaptistæ, probat Scriptura, sicut ostendunt hæc quæ jam sequuntur documenta: Proverbs 31:14; Matthew 13:3.”Förster.

3. On Jeremiah 32:15. “The prophet had often enough declared the land lost to the Chaldeans. Here, however, he must testify that it is not lost forever: his purchase was to restore confidence in the future to other troubled souls. Thus the most afflicted servant of God must again be the most hopeful.”—“When we are outwardly prosperous, we think no one can take our prosperity from us, and when trouble comes upon us, we again think that no one can help us. Both courses are, however, equally ungodly. Therefore God’s servants must contradict both those who are at ease, and those who are in despair. The reverse is always right. In good days humble thyself, and in bad days let thyself be exalted, for then it is a great thing to do.” Diedrich.

4. On Jeremiah 32:9; Jeremiah 32:16; Jeremiah 32:24-25. “Jeremiah also contends, but as a servant of the Lord. First he obeys and afterwards speaks about it. This is a noble way, by which every teacher, who knows the Lord, may prove himself. As soon as he observes that the Lord wishes this or that, it is not the time to expostulate, but to act, not to call anything in question, but to set to work. If then any hesitation is left, or one and another scruple, it is time afterwards to consult with the Lord about it, when one has first shown obedience.” Zinzendorf. [“Though we are bound to follow God with an implicit obedience, yet we should endeavor that it may be more and more intelligent obedience. We must never dispute God’s statutes and judgments, but we may and must inquire, What mean these statutes and judgments? Deuteronomy 6:20.” Henry.—S. R. A.]

5. On Jeremiah 32:25. Tertullian (c. Marc, L. IV., c. 40) sees in the words “Buy thee the field for money,” the prophetic passage to which Matthew 27:9 refers, regarding the reading Ἰερεμίου as correct. Comp. Euseb. Demonstr. Ev., L. X., c. 4; Augustin, De consensu Evang., L. III., c. 7.

6. On Jeremiah 32:27. To God there is no wonder [miracle]. There are wonders only on the lower stage of existence. Every higher stage is a wonder to the lower. Or is there only one stage of existence, and accordingly only one order of nature? When the North American savages cruelly murdered one of their number who had been on a visit to the Great Father in Washington, and told them of the wonders of civilization, as a demoniacally possessed liar, were they less in the right than our highly civilized savages, to whom it is a fundamental axiom, that there is no other world, but that which they can reach with their five senses? It is certainly not proved that there is a living, personal, omnipotent God. But this is not to be proved, it is to be felt from the heart. He who is born of God heareth His voice. To him also miracles cease to be aught irrational. He knows well how to distinguish between true and false miracles, but the former come to him like a voice from the higher world, in which he feels truly at home. For the stages of existence and orders of nature are not hermetically sealed towards each other, but the higher break through in order to lift the lower up to themselves.

7. On Jeremiah 32:36 sqq. On the fulfilment of this prophecy comp. the Comm. on Jeremiah 13:14, and the Doctrinal notes on Jeremiah 3:18-25, No. 8. As the threatening that Israel should be dispersed among all nations from one end of the earth to the other (Deuteronomy 28:64-66) has been literally fulfilled, why should not this promise also be literally fulfilled, that they shall be collected from all lands whither the Lord has cast them out? Why cannot this people be destroyed? Why do they retain their peculiarities with such tenacity, that neither the most raging fanaticism, nor the most humane cosmopolitanism, which is much more dangerous than the former, can mingle them with other nations; so that we can follow the course of their national stream through the sea of nations, as it is said of the Rhine that its water flows unmingled through the lake of Constance? Assuredly this people must yet have a future. Only thus much is correct; that the real kernel of these prophecies is offered to us in a shell which the prophets prepared from contemporary events, but it is difficult to determine where the shell ceases and the kernel begins. Comp. Rinck, The Scripturalness of the doctrine of the Millennial reign defended against Hengstenberg. Eberfeld, 1866, S. 45 sqq.

8. On Jeremiah 32:36 sqq. “Is the consummation of the redemptive work possible while Israel is rejected as a nation? According to the Old Testament this question must be unconditionally negatived. This knows only a temporary rejection of Israel, which at the same time has this result, that Israel does not perish as a nation, but is preserved for future restoration. Is this law aunulled since Israel despised the gracious visitation of the Messiah, the kingdom of God taken from them and given to a people which bring forth the fruits thereof? Are thus the predictions of the prophets, which treat of a glorification of Israel in the latter days, eternally abrogated on account of the nation’s sin? Or can their fulfilment be found only in a spiritual manner in the Christian church, the main trunk of which was formed by a chosen few from Israel? These questions are answered in the affirmative by Bertheau (Old Testament prophecy of Israel’s national glory in their own land. Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol., 1859 and 1860) in accordance with the older protestant theology (comp. especially Hollaz, Exam, theolog. ed. Teller, p. 1264 sqq.) as decidedly as according to our conviction they must, on the ground of Romans 1:25 sqq., be negatived. It seems to us to be irrefragably established that when the times of the world-nations are full (Luke 21:24), Israel will obey the gospel call, and thus be prepared to welcome the Messiah (Matthew 23:39); that for this reason in its dispersion among the nations of the earth it has never been absorbed by them, but preserved in separate existence for its final destination, because God’s gifts of grace and calling are ἀμεταμέλητα.” Oehler in Herzog, R.-Enc., XVII., S. 658, 9.

9. On Jeremiah 33:3. “This is the Lord’s declaration to His obedient servant Jeremiah. My dear child, He says, thou hast acted according to my will, without knowing why. Thou hast done well. But I will make it clear to thee, so that thou wilt wonder no more; I will tell thee that and yet more, so that thou wilt at last say., ‘Yes, let it be so.’ We find such connections a few times elsewhere in the Scriptures. The Lord says, ‘ How can I hide from Abraham the thing that I do!’ (Genesis 18:17.) And the same Lord declares to His disciples, whence comes this inclination or predisposition to tell something new to His disciples, ‘ Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you’ (John 15:16). So also is it here with Jeremiah.” Zinzendorf.

10. On Jeremiah 33:6. Healing, restoration, joy and permanent prosperity are promised by the prophet to Jerusalem at a time when all seemed lost, and it seemed impossible to regain them. How desolate must it have then appeared in Jerusalem when one house after another was thrown down to furnish means of defence! How wildly raged the tumult of war, and how comfortless was the condition of the city shut in by the enemy and completely cut off from the rest of the country! To the mind of him, who then thought of Jerusalem in the future, pictures of destruction alone presented themselves. Jeremiah, however, whose sight was sharpened by the divine anointing, sees beyond the present abomination of desolation in the far distant future pictures of peace and, moreover, of everlasting peace, such as no eye has ever seen, nor hath it entered into the heart of man. There was the patience and faith of the saints (Revelation 13:10). ‘Impossible’ is a word, which does not occur in God’s language.

11. On Jeremiah 33:8. “After the stubborn race has been partly annihilated and partly humbled, God will turn the captivity of the nation, as a whole. Israel cannot perish eternally. God will purify the people from their sins, by forgiveness, the only way in which men can be really freed from sin. Grace and forgiveness are the only ground on which we stand as Christians. This seems nothing to the world, and yet it is more than heaven and earth.” Diedrich.

12. On Jeremiah 33:7-13. “An important doctrine meets us in these words, that it is not the gifts of God which we should seek to apprehend, but the love of God which is manifested in that He imputes not our sin to us. Otherwise we treat the Divine benefits like the fishes which swallow the hook with the bait.” Heim and Hofmann. The major prophets expounded for edification, 1839, S. 509.

13. On Jeremiah 33:14-17. “All God’s promises are at the same time fulfilled by the true man, the Son of Man, the pure sprout of David. He will be a King, in whom we have perfect protection from all destructive agencies, for He will help us from sin, procuring and executing on earth justice and righteousness for all mankind. As we all together inherited sin and death from Adam, so Jesus by His righteousness has brought justification of life for all men, if we would now only take it with joy. Jerusalem will itself bear the King’s name, as he was called in Jeremiah 23:6 : Jehovah our Righteousness, i. e., that Jehovah bestows on us the righteousness, which is the bond, which at the same time unites us to the citizens of His celestial city.” Diedrich.

14. On Jeremiah 33:15-16. [The Lord our righteousness. “This is to be explained by the union of the Church with Christ (see Romans 12:4-5; 1Co 10:17; 1 Corinthians 12:12; Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 4:12; Ephesians 4:15-16; Ephesians 4:25; Ephesians 6:23; Colossians 1:18; Colossians 1:24) so that what belongs to Him is communicated to her (Calvin, Piscator, Muenster).—Thus, by virtue of her mystical union with Christ, and by the imputation of His merits, and the infusion of His Spirit, the Name of the Church may be said to be ‘ The Lord our righteousness;’ she hides herself in Him, and is seen by God as in Him; she is clothed with Christ the Sun of righteousness (see Revelation 12:1) and is accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6).” Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]

15. On Jeremiah 33:17. [“When the First-begotten was brought into the world it was declared concerning Him, The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His Father David, Luke 1:32.” Henry.—S.R. A.]

16. On Jeremiah 33:13-22. [“Four words, each of them full of meaning, comprise the conceptions which we attribute to the Paradisaical state. They are these: Innocence, Love, Rural Life. Piety; and it is towards these conditions of earthly happiness that the human mind reverts, as often as it turns, sickened and disappointed, from the pursuit of whatever else it may have ever labored to acquire. The innocence we here think of is not virtue recovered, that has passed through its season of trial, but it is Moral Perfectness, darkened by no thought or knowledge of the contrary. This Paradisaical love is conjugal fondness, free from sensuous taint. This Rural Life is the constant flow of summer days, spent in gardens and afield, exempt from our exacted toil. This piety of Paradise is the grateful approach of the finite being to the Infinite,—a correspondence that is neither clouded, nor is apprehensive of a cloud.” Isaac Taylor, Spirit of Hebrew Poetry.—S. R. A.]

17. On Jeremiah 33:19-22. [“The richest promises are confirmed by the strongest assurances.” Cowles.—S. R. A.] “As God’s arrangements in nature do not fail, still less can His word fail in His kingdom of grace, and all His word refers to the divine Son of David and His eternal kingdom of grace. Yea, the whole innumerable Israel, Abraham’s spiritual posterity, shall become Davids and Levites, i. e., priests and kings, as was designed even at the beginning of Israel. (Exo 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 5:6).” Diedrich.

18. On Jeremiah 33:18-22. [Wordsworth rejects Hengstenberg’s explanation that these words are to be applied to all Christians indiscriminately, and approves of the argument derived by the ancient Christian fathers from the passage in favor of the threefold order of ministers in the Christian church. He adds “The Gospel of Christ and the Church of Christ possess the spiritual essence of whatever was commanded in the Levitical dispensations. Whatever was local and personal in those dispensations has passed away. The Tabernacle, the Temple, their Sacrifices, their Sabbaths, their Annual Festivals, their threefold Ministry, all these have been spiritualized in the Gospel. Sinai is perpetuated in Zion. The glory of the Law has been absorbed into that of the Gospel. See Psalms 68:17, the great Pentecostal Psalm.”—S. R. A.]

19. On Jeremiah 33:23-26. “In the first place they will not be warned, and afterwards they will not be comforted. The true prophet however announces death to sinners according to the law, but afterwards grace for renovation and for life. Despair is blasphemy. God’s kingdom stands and will be perfected, but the fainthearted will not enter it. God answers: so long as heaven and earth are preserved by Me, it is for the sake of My kingdom, and as a pledge that it will not fail. Israel or, what is the same thing, David’s seed shall be a royal seed, and the captivity which the people must now endure is transient. It is however impossible for the worldly to comprehend this, who persist in carnal repose as though no God could punish them, and again in affliction are so despondent, as though there were no God to help them any more.” Diedrich. [“Deep security commonly ends in deep despair; whereas those that keep up a holy fear at all times have a good hope to support themselves in the worst of times.” Henry.—S. R. A.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Jeremiah 32:16. [“Before Jeremiah went to prayer he delivered the deeds that concerned his new purchase to Baruch, which may intimate to us, that when we are going to worship God we should get our minds as clear as may be from the cares and encumbrances of this world.—Note, Prayer is the salve of every sore.” Henry.—S. R. A.]

2. On Jeremiah 32:17-25. The Divine promises our best consolation in every affliction. 1. There are promises of Divine help for every kind of distress in human life. 2. These promises often sound very wonderful (Jeremiah 32:24-25). 3. Their fulfilment on the part of God is guaranteed by the perfection of the Divine nature (Jeremiah 32:17-19). 4. Their fulfilment is on our part conditioned by faith.

3. On Jeremiah 32:18-19. Harvest [Thanksgiving-day] Sermon. “To what should our admiration of the power and grace of God in the present harvest lead us? 1. To thank God. 2. To trust all to Him, that He has promised us. 3. To obey His voice.” Jentsch., Gesetz and Zeugniss, 1853.

4. On Jeremiah 32:19. “The very serious and important truth, the eyes of the Lord are open to all the paths of the children of men. This should 1, shake us and awake us from our security, if some of our ways are sinful and such as the Lord must certainly disapprove; 2, humble us, if we are indeed under the discipline of God’s Spirit, and yet turn to our own self made courses, and have not yet allowed a fixed and sure heart to be imparted to us; 3, be for our comfort and encouragement, when we are often led in dark and difficult paths.” J. M. Mueller, Zeugnisse v. Christo. [Witnesses to Christ]. Neues Predigtbuch., Stuttgart, 1866, S. 757.

5. On Jeremiah 32:19. [“The greatness of God’s wisdom and the abundance of His power. Proved from His nature. Rem. 1. God hath the power of making the deepest affliction of His children produce their highest happiness. 2. The contrivances of tyrants to oppress the church procure its establishment. 3. The triumphs of Satan turn to the destruction of his empire.” Saurin.—S. R. A.]

6. On Jeremiah 32:39. Wedding-sermon, “The promise which the Lord gives to God-fearing couples. 1. One heart. 2. One way. 3. One blessing, which shall extend to their children.” Florey, 1862.

7. On Jeremiah 32:40. Wedding-sermon. The nature and fruit of a true marriage. 1. Its nature: it is a covenant which a man and a woman conclude in the Lord, and with the Lord (put My fear in their hearts;—not depart from Me;—everlasting covenant). 2. Its fruit: good from the Lord without ceasing.

8. On Jeremiah 32:40. [“Teachers may put good things into our heads, but it is God only that can put them into our hearts, that can work in us both to will and to do.” Henry.—S. R. A.]

9. On Jeremiah 32:39-41. “The greatest and dearest of all the promises of God to a marriage in the highest degree happy and delightful.” G. Conr. Rieger.

10. On Jeremiah 32:40-41. Baptismal Sermon. “The gracious promises of God, which He gives to a child of man in holy baptism.” Florey, 1862.

11. On Jeremiah 32:42. “ In communion of suffering of pious Christians is also a blessed fellowship of consolation, since 1, when we as Christians bear with one another, we can also with each other and by each other obtain composure with respect to whatever has befallen us; 2, our heart is revived by what remains, viz., love on earth and hope in heaven; 3, we become strong for whatever duty is laid upon us, viz., labor and courage.” Florey, 1863.

12. On Jeremiah 33:1. [“No confinement can deprive God’s people of His presence; no locks or bars can shut out His gracious visits, nay, oftentimes as their afflictions abound their consolations much more abound, and they have the most reviving communications of His favor then when the world frowns on them. Paul’s sweetest Epistles were those that bare date out of a prison.” Henry.—S. R. A.]

13. On Jeremiah 33:6. “ The disease of our times is no other than a rebellious spirit, and the cause of this is no other than a want of reverence for God and His law.” Discourse on the Birth-day of the king by Deacon Hauber in Tübingen. Palmer, Ev Casualreden, 2te Folge, 1, 1850.

14. On Jeremiah 33:14-16. “Jesus Christ a King. 1. From what a noble royal stock did He proceed! (Raised by God, descending from David, both by His deity and humanity heir of the throne). 2. How well has He exercised His rule with judgment and righteousness (He Himself is the Lord, who is our righteousness). 3. How far does His dominion extend! (From Jerusalem to the ends of the earth). 4. How safely does His people dwell by His help in peace !” Naumann, in Gesetz u. Zeugn., 1860, March.

15. On Jeremiah 33:14-16. “Who is He announced to-day? 1. The long promised—with reference to His historical appearance. 2. The Son of David and at the same time God’s Son—this is His personal significance. 3. The Lord, who is our righteousness—this relates to His holy office and work.” Anacker, in Gesetz u. Zeugn., 1860, March.

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Verses 4-9

2. Destruction in the Present. Nevertheless glorious Internal and External Rebuilding in the Future

Jeremiah 33:4-9

4 For thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel,

Concerning the houses of this city,
And concerning the houses of the kings of Judah,
Which were thrown down against the ramparts and against the sword,

5 Which are come to fight against the Chaldeans,1

And to fill them with the dead bodies of men,
Whom I have slain in my anger and in my fury,
And for all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this city:

6 Behold, I bring it health2 and cure, and heal them,

And reveal3 unto them an abundance4 of peace and truth.

7 And I turn the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel,

And build them as in the beginning.

8 And I cleanse them from all their guilt, with which they have sinned against me,

And pardon all their transgressions, with which they have sinned and transgressed5 against me.

9 And it [the city] shall be to me a name of joy,

A praise and an honor before 6 all the nations of the earth,

Who shall hear all the good that I do unto them;7

And shall tremble and quake on account of all the goodness,
And on account of all the prosperity, that I procure unto it.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

In connection with the view which the city of Jerusalem then afforded, with many houses thrown down in the interest of defence (Jeremiah 33:4-5), the prophet promises the city healing and peace (Jeremiah 33:6), the return of all the exiles, restoration (Jeremiah 33:7) and forgiveness of all sin (Jeremiah 33:8). Jehovah will again make Jerusalem the object of His joy and His glory in view of all the nations of the earth, who will be most powerfully impressed by this marvel of restoration to peace and prosperity (Jeremiah 33:9).

Jeremiah 33:4. Jeremiah 33:5, For thus saith Jehovah … from this city. By for at the beginning of Jeremiah 33:4 the prophet introduces the specification of the great and wonderful facts of redemption promised in general in Jeremiah 33:2-3. This כִּי is thus the key of the whole chapter.—Concerning the houses. From Isaiah 22:10 we see that houses were thrown down in sieges, to repair or strengthen the walls. It was natural that those houses should be used for this purpose which were nearest the walls, whether private or royal property, and it is unnecessary, with Hitzig, to explain the prominence of the royal houses from the greater ease in obtaining them or the superiority of their materials. It is clear that we cannot render for ramparts and for sword, for in the first place, as has been repeatedly remarked, the Hebrew does not signify ramparts of defence but of attack (comp. Jeremiah 32:24; Jeremiah 6:6; 2 Samuel 20:15; 2 Kings 19:32; Ezekiel 4:2; Ezekiel 17:17; Ezekiel 21:27; Ezekiel 26:8; Daniel 11:15), and in the second place, for sword would not be appropriate. We are not justified in rendering this singular in any other than the usual sense, especially as it is not at all certain that the plural חֲרָכוֹת, Ezekiel 26:9, has any other than the usual meaning. Comp. Haevernick, in loc.—To take אֵל for לְ and to attribute a causal meaning to it so that it is equivalent to through, is altogether arbitrary. It cannot be urged that the prophet here speaks of all the houses of Jerusalem as being destroyed. Jeremiah only takes occasion, in a view of the houses destroyed in behalf of the defence, to set over against this gloomy picture of the present, which certainly was the prelude of entire destruction, the most glorious picture of the future restored city. אֵל is here therefore = against.—Sword is evidently used by synecdoche for all manual weapons, while the ramparts also include the machines erected upon them, so that these two words comprise the totality of the implements of attack. Comp. Ezekiel 21:24-25.—Which are come, etc. Comp. Textual Notes. As the text now stands it is declared of the houses that they are come (1) to fight with the Chaldeans, (2) to fill them (viz., the houses) with corpses. Now though the first may be said, in so far as by a bold hyperbole, the houses thrown down would be designated as moved forward into line of battle and taking part in the fray, still the second is in the highest degree surprising. For how can the houses come to fill them with corpses? This “them” must either denote themselves, which would be grammatically and logically incorrect, or it must be referred to the other houses, which would be doing violence to it, seeing that the other houses have not been previously mentioned. Then also the filling, etc., must be regarded as the unintended result, which seems forced. Since, then, the present text proves to be incapable of giving us a satisfactory sense, nothing further is left us but to resort to an emendation. We have mentioned in the Textual Notes attempts already made, none of which, however, meet with our approval. Perhaps it would be better to read Jerusalem (Jeremiah 37:10), or to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 34:1-7 coll. Jeremiah 32:24; Jeremiah 32:29) instead of the Chaldeans. Then the words are come would refer to ramparts and sword. The circumstance that these substantives are feminine is of no account. For the masculine come may be referred κατὰ σύνεσιν to the persons, to whom the ramparts and sword serve as implements. (Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 60, 4).—Them after fill would then be referred to the idea of houses, which is prominent enough in Jeremiah 33:4 to justify such a construction. Perhaps also we might read to fill it (comp. לָהּ Jeremiah 33:6). The alteration into the Chaldeans might be explained by the difficulty of understanding are come of the ramparts and sword, and by the idea that it might refer to the houses of the city or their inhabitants. Perhaps also the remembrance of Jeremiah 32:5 may have as sisted in this. Meanwhile I confess that I perceive the difficulties attending this conjecture also, and therefore will gladly receive better instruction.

Jeremiah 33:6-7. Behold I bring … as in the beginning. In opposition to tearing down in Jeremiah 33:4 the prophet promises bandages or healing, instead of filling with corpses he promises cure.—Peace and truth, i. e. genuine, lasting prosperity. Comp. Jeremiah 14:13; Psalms 85:11.—Build them. Comp. Jeremiah 24:6; Jeremiah 31:4. The expression is chosen with reference to the occasion of the prophecy, Jeremiah 33:4. Yet the idea is not to be taken merely in the narrower sense.—As in the beginning. The phrase is used proleptically, comp. Jeremiah 33:11. It is not the building which is compared with the building of the beginning, but the result of the building is compared with the original state of things. Comp. besides Isa 1:26; 1 Kings 13:6.

Jeremiah 33:8-9. And I cleanse … procure unto it. In Jeremiah 33:8 the internal, heart-restoration is described. Comp. Jeremiah 31:18-20; Jeremiah 31:34.—Which they have sinned. Comp. Zephaniah 3:11.

Jeremiah 33:9. And it shall be. The subject is the city. Comp. להּ Jeremiah 33:6.—A name of joy. שֵׁם שָׂשׂון, which reminds us of שֶׁמֶן שָׂשׂוֹן (Psalms 45:8; Isaiah 61:3), is joyful renown, renown which brings joy. On the subject-matter comp. Jeremiah 13:11; Zephaniah 3:19-20; Deuteronomy 26:19.—Before all the nations. How far Jerusalem will extend the Lord’s glory among the nations is declared in the following clause. The view of all the good which the Lord is preparing for Jerusalem will fill them with dread. At any rate with a wholesome fear, for after they have in their terror perceived that they have neglected the almighty and benevolent God for vain idols, they will turn again to the former. Comp. Numbers 14:13-15; Deuteronomy 29:24; Isaiah 2:2-4; Isaiah 11:10; Isaiah 19:17.