Jer 31:27-40 | KD | STEP | The renovation of Israel and Judah. - Jer 31:27. "Behold, days are coming, saith Jahveh, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with seed of men and seed of beasts. Jer 31:28. And it shall be that, just as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, to pull down and to destroy and to hurt, so shall I watch over them to build and to plant, saith Jahveh. Jer 31:29. In those days they shall no more say, 'Fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children become blunt;' Jer 31:30. But each man shall die for his own iniquity: every man who eats the sour grapes, his own teeth shall become blunted." After announcement has been made, in what preceded, that both portions of the covenant people will be led back into their own land and re-established there, both are now combined, since they are again, at the restoration, to be united under one king, the sprout of David (cf. , ), and to both there is promised great blessing, both temporal and spiritual. The house of Israel and the house of Judah, as separate nations, are represented as a fruitful field, which God will sow with men and cattle. בּהמּה, "cattle," the tame domestic animals, contribute to the prosperity of a nation. That this seed will mightily increase, is evident from the fact that God sows it, and (as is further stated in ) will watch over it as it grows. Whereas, hitherto, He has watched for the purpose of destroying and annihilating the people, because of their apostasy, He will in time to come watch for the purpose of planting and building them up. The prophet has hitherto been engaged in fulfilling, against the faithless people, the first part of the commission given him by the Lord when he was called to his office ( ); hereafter, he will be engaged in building up. As certainly as the first has taken place - and of this the people have had practical experience - so certainly shall the other now take place.

‏ Jeremiah 31:27-40

Jer 31:27-28 The renovation of Israel and Judah. - Jer 31:27. "Behold, days are coming, saith Jahveh, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with seed of men and seed of beasts. Jer 31:28. And it shall be that, just as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, to pull down and to destroy and to hurt, so shall I watch over them to build and to plant, saith Jahveh. Jer 31:29. In those days they shall no more say, 'Fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children become blunt;' Jer 31:30. But each man shall die for his own iniquity: every man who eats the sour grapes, his own teeth shall become blunted."

After announcement has been made, in what preceded, that both portions of the covenant people will be led back into their own land and re-established there, both are now combined, since they are again, at the restoration, to be united under one king, the sprout of David (cf. Jer 3:15, Jer 3:18), and to both there is promised great blessing, both temporal and spiritual. The house of Israel and the house of Judah, as separate nations, are represented as a fruitful field, which God will sow with men and cattle. בּהמּה, "cattle," the tame domestic animals, contribute to the prosperity of a nation. That this seed will mightily increase, is evident from the fact that God sows it, and (as is further stated in Jer 31:28) will watch over it as it grows. Whereas, hitherto, He has watched for the purpose of destroying and annihilating the people, because of their apostasy, He will in time to come watch for the purpose of planting and building them up. The prophet has hitherto been engaged in fulfilling, against the faithless people, the first part of the commission given him by the Lord when he was called to his office (Jer 1:10); hereafter, he will be engaged in building up. As certainly as the first has taken place - and of this the people have had practical experience - so certainly shall the other now take place. Jer 31:29-30

The proverb, which Ezekiel also (Eze 18:2.) mentions and contends against, cannot mean, "The fathers have begun to eat sour grapes, but not till the teeth of their sons have become blunted by them" (Nägelsbach); the change of tense is against this, for, by the perfect אכלוּ and the imperfect תּקהינה, the blunting of the children’s teeth is set down as a result of the fathers’ eating. The proverb means, "Children atone for the misdeeds of their fathers," or "The sins of the fathers are visited on their innocent children." On this point, cf. the explanations given in Eze 18:2. "Then shall they no more say" is rightly explained by Hitzig to mean, "They shall have no more occasion to say." But the meaning of the words is not yet made plain by this; in particular, the question how we must understand Jer 31:30 is not settled. Graf, referring to Jer 23:7-8, supplies יאמרוּ after כּי־אם, and thus obtains the meaning, Then will they no more accuse God of unrighteousness, as in that wicked proverb, but they will perceive that every one has to suffer for his own guilt. Hitzig and Nägelsbach have declared against this insertion - the former with the remark that, in Jer 23:7-8, because both members of the sentence begin with protestations, the whole is clear, while here it is not so - the latter resting on the fact that the dropping of the proverb from current use certainly implies a correct knowledge of the righteousness of God, but one which is very elementary and merely negative; while, on the other hand, the whole connection of the passage now before us shows that it is intended to describe a period when the theocratic life is in a most flourishing condition. Then expositors take Jer 31:30 as the utterance of the prophet, and as embodying the notion that the average level of morality shall be so high at this future period, that only some sins will continue to be committed, and these as isolated exceptions to the rule. Taken all in all, Israel will be a holy people, in which the general spirit pervading them will repress the evil in some individuals, that would otherwise manifest itself. But we cannot imagine how these ideas can be supposed to be contained in the words, "Every man shall die for his own sins," etc. Jer 31:30 unquestionably contains the opposite of Jer 31:29. The proverb mentioned in Jer 31:29 involves the complaint against God, that in punishing sin He deals unjustly. According to this view, Jer 31:30 must contain the declaration that, in the future, the righteousness of God is to be revealed in the punishment of sins. As we have already remarked on Eze 18:3., the verse in question rather means, that after the re-establishment of Israel, the Lord will make known to His people His grace in so glorious a manner that the favoured ones will fully perceive the righteousness of His judgments. The experience of the unmerited love and compassion of the Lord softens the heart so much, that the favoured one no longer doubts the righteousness of the divine punishment. Such knowledge of true blessedness cannot be called elementary; rather, it implies a deep experience of divine grace and a great advance in the life of faith. Nor does the verse contain a judgment expressed by the prophet in opposition to that of his contemporaries, but it simply declares that the opinion contained in that current proverb shall no longer be accepted then, but the favoured people will recognise in the death of the sinner the punishment due to them for their own sin. Viewed in this manner, these verses prepare the way for the following announcement concerning the nature of the new covenant. Jer 31:31-40 The new covenant. - Jer 31:31. "Behold, days are coming, saith Jahveh, when I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant; Jer 31:32. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I laid hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant of mine they broke, though I had married them to myself, saith Jahveh; Jer 31:33. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jahveh: I will put my law within them, and on their heart will I write it; and I will become to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. Jer 31:34. And they shall no more teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know ye Jahveh, for all of them shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith Jahveh; for I will pardon their iniquity, and their sins will I remember no more. Jer 31:35. Thus saith Jahveh, [who] gives the sun for light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and stars for light by night, who rouses the sea so that its waves roar, Jahveh of hosts is His name: Jer 31:36. If these ordinances move away from before me, saith Jahveh, then also will the seed of Israel cease to be a people before me for ever. Jer 31:37. Thus saith Jahveh: If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be searched out, then will I also reject all the seed of Israel because of all that they have done, saith Jahveh. Jer 31:38. Behold, days come, saith Jahveh, when the city shall be built for Jahveh, from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner, Jer 31:39. And the measuring-line shall once more go out straight over the hill of Gareb, and turn round towards Goah. Jer 31:40. And all the valley of the corpses and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the valley of Kidron, unto the corner of the gate of the horses towards the east, [shall be] holiness to Jahveh; it shall not be plucked up nor pulled down again for ever.

The re-establishment of Israel reaches its completion in the making of a new covenant, according to which the law of God is written in the hearts of the people; thereby Israel becomes in truth the people of the Lord, and the knowledge of God founded on the experience of the forgiveness of sins is such that there is no further need of any external means like mutual teaching about God (Jer 31:31-34). This covenant is to endure for ever, like the unchangeable ordinances of nature (Jer 31:35-37); and in consequence of this, Jerusalem shall be guilt as the holy city of God, which shall never be destroyed again (Jer 31:38-40). Jer 31:31-32 כּרת בּרית does not mean "to make an appointment," but "to conclude a covenant," to establish a relation of mutual duties and obligations. Every covenant which God concludes with men consists, on the side of God, in assurance of His favours and actual bestowal of them; these bind men to the keeping of the commands laid on them. The covenant which the Lord will make with all Israel in the future is called "a new covenant," as compared with that made with the fathers at Sinai, when the people were led out of Egypt; this latter is thus implicitly called the "old covenant." The words, "on the day when I took them by the hand," etc., must not be restricted, on the one side, to the day of the Exodus from Egypt, nor, on the other, to the day when the covenant was solemnly made at Sinai; they rather refer to the whole time of the Exodus, which did not reach its termination till the entrance into Canaan, though it culminated in the solemn admission of Israel, at Sinai, as the people of Jahveh; see on Jer 7:22. (On the punctuation of החזיקי, cf. Ewald, §238, d, Olshaus. Gramm. §191,f.) אשׁר is not a conjunction, "quod, because," but a relative pronoun, and must be combined with את־בּריתי, "which my covenant," i.e., which covenant of mine. "They" stands emphatically in contrast with "though I" in the following circumstantial clause, which literally means, "but I have married them to myself," or, "I was their husband." As to בּעלתּי, see on Jer 3:14. Hengstenberg wrongly takes the words as a promise, "but I will marry them to myself;" this view, however, is incompatible with the perfect, and the position of the words as a contrast with "they broke." ^{▼▼In the citation of this passage in Heb 8:8., the words are quoted according to the lxx version, κᾀγὼ ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν, although this translation is incorrect, because the apostle does not use these words in proving any point. These same words, moreover, have been rendered by the lxx, in Jer 3:14, ἐγὼ κατακυριεύσω ὑμῶν.}

The two closely connected expressions indicate why a new covenant was necessary; there is no formal statement, however, of the reason, which is merely given in a subordinate and appended clause. For the proper reason why a new covenant is made is not that the people have broken the old one, but that, though Jahveh had united Israel to Himself, they have broken the covenant and thereby rendered it necessary to make a new one. God the Lord, in virtue of His unchangeable faithfulness, would not alter the relation He had Himself established in His love, but simply found it anew in a way which obviated the breaking of the covenant by Israel. For it was a defect connected with the covenant made with Israel at Sinai, that it could be broken on their part. This defect is not to exist in the new covenant which God will make in after times. The expression "after those (not these) days" is remarkable; ההם is not the same as האלּה, and yet the days meant can only be the "coming days;" accordingly, it is "those days" (as in Jer 31:29) that are to be expected. The expression "after these days" is inexact, and probably owes its origin to the idea contained in the phrase "in the end of the days" (בּאחרית, cf. Jer 23:20).