Jeremiah 3:19

3:12-20 See God's readiness to pardon sin, and the blessings reserved for gospel times. These words were proclaimed toward the north; to Israel, the ten tribes, captive in Assyria. They are directed how to return. If we confess our sins, the Lord is faithful and just to forgive them. These promises are fully to come to pass in the bringing back the Jews in after-ages. God will graciously receive those that return to him; and by his grace, he takes them out from among the rest. The ark of the covenant was not found after the captivity. The whole of that dispensation was to be done away, which took place after the multitude of believers had been greatly increased by the conversion of the Gentiles, and of the Israelites scattered among them. A happy state of the church is foretold. He can teach all to call him Father; but without thorough change of heart and life, no man can be a child of God, and we have no security for not departing from Him.

Jeremiah 3:19 . But I said — Namely, within myself, God is here represented as deliberating with himself, after the manner of men, in what way he might, consistently with his divine attributes, receive the Jewish people into his favour, and admit them into the Christian Church. How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land? — How can it be consistent with my divine holiness and justice to receive such a rebellious people into my favour, to own them for my children, and restore them to the possession of that goodly inheritance which I gave to their fathers. Judea is elsewhere called a pleasant land, the glory of all lands, and the land which God had espied out for his chosen people: see Daniel 8:9 ; and Daniel 11:16 ; Daniel 11:45 ; Ezekiel 20:6 . A goodly heritage of the hosts of nations — The Hebrew, צבי צבאות גוים , is literally, the glory of hosts, or, multitudes of nations, that which they esteem glorious, a phrase of the same import with that now quoted from Ezekiel, the glory of all lands. This pleasant land, and glory of the hosts of nations, is here to be taken figuratively, for the Christian Church and the privileges of the gospel covenant.

And the condition of adoption into the former, and of enjoying the latter, are expressly stated by Christ and his apostles to be the same as are here prescribed, namely, true faith in God, as our Father, our reconciled Father in Christ, (which faith is always preceded by the repentance required, Jeremiah 3:13 ,) and uniform obedience for the time to come. Thou shalt call me, My Father, and shalt not turn away from me — On these conditions I will put thee among the children.

Verse 19. - The concluding words of the last verse have turned the current of the prophet's thoughts. "Unto your fathers." Yes; how bright the prospect when that ideal of Israel was framed in the Divine counsels! Condescending accommodation to human modes of thought; But I said fails to represent the relation of this verse to the preceding. Render, I indeed had said , and continue, How will I , etc. Put thee among the children. This is a very common rendering, but of doubtful correctness. It assumes that, from the point of view adopted (under Divine guidance) in the prophecies of Jeremiah, the various heathen nations were in the relation of sons to Jehovah. This is most improbable; indeed, even Exodus 4:22 does not really favor the doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God in the fullest sense of the word. Moreover, the pronoun rendered "thee" is in the feminine, indicating that the prophet has still in his mind the picture of Israel as Jehovah's bride. It would surely be an absurd statement that Jehovah would put his bride among the children! Render, therefore, How will I found thee with sons! comparing, for the use of the Hebrew verb, 1 Samuel 2:8 , and for that of the preposition, Isaiah 54:11 . It is, in fact, the familiar figure by which a family or a nation is likened to a building ("house of Abraham," "of Israel"). Jehovah's purpose had been to make Abraham's seed as the dust of the earth ( Genesis 13:16 ).

Instead of that, the restored exiles would be few, and weak in proportion, so that the Jewish Church of the early restoration period is represented as complaining, "We made not the land salvation, neither were inhabitants of the world produced" ( Isaiah 26:18 ). A special Divine promise was needed to surmount this grave difficulty. A goodly... nations ; rather, a heritage the most glorious among the nations . So in Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 20:6, 15 ) Palestine is described as "the glory of all lands." The want of irrigation, and the denudation of the land, have no doubt much diminished the natural beauty and fertility of Palestine; but wherever moderate care is bestowed on the soil, how well it rewards it! Thou shalt call me... shalt not turn ; rather, thou wilt call me ... wilt not turn . It is the continuation of Jehovah's ideal for Israel. In response to his loving gifts, Israel would surely recognize him as her Father, and devote to him all her energies in willing obedience. Father is here used, not in the spiritual and individualizing sense of the New Testament, but in such a sense as a member of a primitive Israelitish family, in which the pairia potestas was fully carried out, could realize. The first instance of the individualizing use of the term is in Ecclus. 23:1-4. (For the Old Testament use, comp. Isaiah 1:2 ; Isaiah 63:16 ; Exodus 4:22 ; Hosea 11:1 .) Jeremiah 3:19

19 . shall … nations ] rightly mg. would … nations! Not a question, but the expression of a wish. children ] sons. Cp. Exodus 4:22 . The point is that as daughters could not as a rule inherit ( Numbers 27:1 ff.; cp. Job 42:15 ), God desired to treat His people as sons. goodly heritage of the hosts ] heritage of the chief splendour, or, goodliest heritage, mg. the goodliest heritage of the nations , lit. “the heritage of the beauty of the beauties (better than ‘hosts’) of the nations.” Cp. Ezekiel 20:6 ; Ezekiel 20:15 ; Daniel 11:16 ; Daniel 11:41 . The sense is that Israel shall have a more glorious land than any other nation. 19, 20 . Jehovah would desire to treat His people as sons in the matter of inheritance. Their conduct precludes this. Chs. Jeremiah 3:19 to Jeremiah 4:4 . The invitation includes the whole nation, on a like condition This section should follow immediately on Jeremiah 3:5 . See introd. note on Jeremiah 3:6-18 .

(19) But I said. —Better, And I said. There is no contrast with what precedes. The speaker is, of course, Jehovah. The How shall I put thee! is an exclamation rather than a question, the utterance of a promise as with an intensity of affirmation. Special stress is laid on the pronoun “I.” The words have been rendered by some commentators, following the Targum, How shall I clothe thee with children? A pleasant land.—Literally, as in the margin, a land of desire, i.e., desirable. A goodly heritage of the hosts of nations.—More accurately, a heritage of the beauty of beauties (Hebrew for “chief beauty”) of the nations. The English version rests on the assumption that the word translated “beauties” is the same as that elsewhere rendered “Sabaoth,” or “hosts,” which it closely resembles. And I said.—Not, as in the English, the answer to a question, but the continuance of the same thought. God will treat repentant Israel as His child: He will lead Israel to trust Him as a father. The days of apostasy (“turning away”) will then be over. The original Hebrew seems, to judge from the LXX. version, to have had the plural “ye shall call,” “ye shall not turn away,” the prophet passing from the collective unity to the individuals that composed it.

But I-- (emphatic). "And I." The emphasis lies in the abundant goodness of God contrasted with Israel's waywardness. How ...? - Rather, How ...! i. e., How gloriously! With what honor will I place thee among the children! Goodly ... of the hosts ... - Rather, "a heritage of the chief beauty of nations." The general sense is, that Israel "possesses the most beautiful territory of any nation." And I said - This clause is not the answer to a difficulty, as in the King James Version, but completes the description of God's loving purpose. "I said within myself that I would treat thee as a son, and give thee a glorious inheritance: I also said, that ye would return my love, would call me Father, and be untrue to me no more."

How shall I words that speak either, first, God’s putting them to their own thoughts, how they could think he should bring such a perfidious people as they were into the land which he had promised; else, secondly, his considering within himself how or what course he should take to bring such a thing about, and accomplish it, they had so greatly degenerated from him and disobliged him; see Hosea 6:4 ; both implying that such a thing could not be brought about without repentance and true conversion to him, wrought by his free grace, Ephesians 1:5,6 . Put thee among the children; esteem thee as my child, till thou give some clearer proof and demonstration of thy repentance. And give thee a pleasant land; how shall I put thee into possession of that pleasant land of desire that I have promised thee? Canaan is so called, Psalm 106:24 Daniel 8:9 11:16,41 . A goodly heritage, Heb. heritage of glory , or beauty: see Isaiah 4:2 . Of the hosts of nations; so called, either because possessed by several potent nations, Numbers 13:28 Deu 4:38 ; or rather, it may note the great hosts and multitudes of nations, or Gentiles, that should be joined to them in the gospel church, viz. of God’s elect, and so a heritage of the greatest delights, or the desire of nations; a people to whom all the nations would desire to flock; see Ezekiel 20:6 ; and may be spoken also of the heavenly Canaan: the LXX. render it, the heritage of God, the omnipotent Governor of the nations.

And I said, Thou shalt call me, My father: God comes now to a resolution how he would do it. Either it is a direction: q.d. On this condition, that thou wilt own me, and not return any more to idols, this shall be done; or a promise, I will cause thee to own me, and give thee perseverance, that thou shalt not depart from me; and this is very applicable to the work of Christ; see John 1:12 ; see also 2 Corinthians 6:17,18 ; and the condition is indeed no more than God promiseth to effect in them.

19. The good land covenanted to Abraham is to be restored to his seed. But the question arises, How shall this be done? put … among … children—the Greek for adoption means, literally, "putting among the sons." the children—that is, My children. "How shall I receive thee back into My family, after thou hast so long forsaken Me for idols?" The answer is, they would acknowledge Him as "Father," and no longer turn away from Him. God assumes the language of one wondering how so desperate apostates could be restored to His family and its privileges (compare Eze 37:3; Calvin makes it, How the race of Abraham can be propagated again, being as it were dead); yet as His purpose has decreed it so, He shows how it shall be effected, namely, they shall receive from Him the spirit of adoption to cry, "My Father" (Joh 1:12; Ga 4:6). The elect are "children" already in God's purpose; this is the ground of the subsequent realization of this relationship (Eph 1:5; Heb 2:13). pleasant land—(Jer 11:5; Eze 20:6; Da 11:16, Margin). heritage of … hosts—a heritage the most goodly of all nations [Maurer]; or a "heritage possessed by powerful hosts" (De 4:38; Am 2:9). The rendering "splendors," instead of "hosts," is opposed by the fact that the Hebrew for "splendor" is not found in the plural.