Jeremiah 33:17

33:14-26 To crown the blessings God has in store, here is a promise of the Messiah. He imparts righteousness to his church, for he is made of God to us righteousness; and believers are made the righteousness of God in him. Christ is our Lord God, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. But in this world prosperity and adversity succeed each other, as light and darkness, day and night. The covenant of priesthood shall be secured. And all true believers are a holy priesthood, a royal priesthood, they offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God; themselves, in the first place, as living sacrifices. The promises of that covenant shall have full accomplishment in the gospel Israel. In Ga 6:16, all that walk according to the gospel rule, are made to be the Israel of God, on whom shall be peace and mercy. Let us not despise the families which were of old the chosen people of God, though for a time they seem to be cast off.

For thus saith the Lord,.... Confirming the above promise concerning the Messiah; giving a reason why his coming may be expected; and why the salvation, justification, and final perseverance of his church and people, are certain things, and to be depended upon: David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; or, "there shall not be cut off unto David a man" (a); and this is not to be understood of the temporal kingdom of David, which has been at an end long ago: Jeconiah, that was carried captive into Babylon, was written childless, and left no issue; and Zerubbabel, the only one of David's seed that made any figure after the captivity, was not a king; this is only true of the man Christ Jesus, of the seed of David, and is his son, to whom has been given the throne of his father David; and who reigns over the house of Jacob for ever; and of whose kingdom there is no end, Luke 1:32; and as long as he is King of saints, which will be for ever, David will not want a man to sit upon his throne. David's earthly kingdom was but a typical and shadowy one; a type of Christ's spiritual kingdom, which has succeeded it, and in which Christ is David's son and successor, and whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. (a) "non exscindetur Davidi vir", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt.

Jeremiah 33:17-18 . For thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man, &c. — It is very evident that the prophecies in these verses were not fulfilled in the Jews after the Babylonish captivity; for, from that time to the coming of Christ, David was without a successor of his family sitting upon the throne of Judah or Israel. Nor have they been fulfilled in them since, for, from the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans to the present time, they have neither had a king nor a regular priesthood belonging to their nation. There can therefore be no doubt that Jeremiah here foretels the kingdom of the Messiah, and the priesthood, or ministry rather, to be established by him, by which a pure and spiritual oblation should be offered in every place where a church should be formed for him, (see Malachi 1:11 ,) and not at Jerusalem and in Judea only. “As the Jewish priesthood, in the family of Aaron, is extinct, and hath been exercised neither in Jerusalem nor in any other place for seventeen centuries, it follows,” says Calmet, “that these promises can respect only the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ, exercised by himself, and by his ministers, in the Christian Church from the beginning, and which shall continue to the end of time.” Nor is it unusual for God in the Old Testament to express promises relating to, and to be fulfilled under, the gospel, by terms proper to the Old Testament. See Isaiah 19:19 ; Isaiah 56:7 ; Isaiah 66:23 .

And as the prophets often describe the Christian worship by representations taken from the temple service, so the apostles prove the rights and privileges belonging to the ministers of the gospel from the prerogatives given to the Jewish priesthood. See Romans 15:16 ; 1 Corinthians 9:13-14 .

(17) David shall never want a man . . . —The words are hardly more than a repetition of promises like those of 2Samuel 7:16 ; 1Kings 2:4 ; Psalm 89:29 ; Psalm 89:36 , but it is here repeated under very different circumstances. Then it had been given when the line of David was in all the freshness of its strength. Now it is uttered when that line seemed on the very point of dying out. The hope of the prophet is, however, inextinguishable. He is certain that the true King will always be of the house of David. It lay almost in the nature of the case that the words of the prophet should find a fulfilment other than that which was present to his thoughts; and that, while he pictured to himself an unbroken succession of sovereigns of David’s line, there was in fact a higher fulfilment in the continuous sovereignty of the Christ as the true Son of David. We have something like an echo of the words in the words of the Angel at the Annunciation ( Luke 1:32-33 ), and it is an echo that interprets them.

Read literally, these verses promise the permanent restoration of the Davidic throne and (of the Levitical priesthood. As a matter of fact Zedekiah was the last king of David's line, and the Levitical priest-hood has long passed away. Both these changes Jeremiah himself foretold Jeremiah 22:30 ; Jeremiah 3:16 . In what way then is this apparent contradiction (compare Isaiah 66:20-23 ; Ezekiel 40-48 ) to be explained? The solution is probably as follows. It was necessary that the Bible should be intelligible to the people at the time when it was written, and in some degree to the writer. The Davidic kingship and the Levitical priest-hood were symbols, which represented to the Jew all that was most dear to his heart in the state of things under which he lived. Their restoration was the restoration of his national and spiritual life. Neither was so restored as to exist permanently. But that was given instead, of which both were types, the Church, whose Head is the true prophet, priest and King.

This is apparently a promise relating to Christ, for David’s line had failed long since, had it not been continued in Christ, whose kingdom is and shall be an everlasting kingdom. So long as Israel remained a kingdom, those of the line of David ruled over it; when that failed, Christ came in the flesh, who ruleth, and shall rule, over the Israel of God for ever.

The re-establishment of the Davidic monarchy and of the Levitical priesthood. - Jeremiah 33:14 . "Behold, days are coming, saith Jahveh, when I will perform the good word which I have spoken to the house of Israel, and concerning the house of Judah. Jeremiah 33:15 . In those days and at that time will I cause to sprout unto David a sprout of righteousness, and he shall do judgment and righteousness in the land. Jeremiah 33:16 . In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is how she shall be called, 'Jahveh our righteousness.' Jeremiah 33:17 . For thus saith Jahveh: David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel. Jeremiah 33:18 . Nor shall the Levitical priests want a man before me to offer a burnt-offering, to burn a meat-offering, or to perform sacrifice every day. Jeremiah 33:19. "And the word of Jahveh came unto Jeremiah, saying: Jeremiah 33:20. Thus saith Jahveh, If ye shall be able to break my covenant (with) the day and my covenant (with) the night, so that there shall not be day and night in their proper time, Jeremiah 33:21. Then also shall my covenant with David my servant be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign upon his throne, and with the Levites, the priests, my ministers. Jeremiah 33:22. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites who serve me.