The Book of Jeremiah

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God tells Jeremiah to "Write thee all the words... in a book," preserving these promises for the generations who would need them. The heart of the message is restoration: "I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah... and they shall possess it." But first comes trouble. God describes a day of terror so great that strong men double over "as a woman in travail," faces "turned into paleness." "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble." Yet the sentence does not end in despair: "but he shall be saved out of it." God will "break his yoke" and "burst thy bonds," and His people will "serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them", the promised Messiah. So God comforts: "fear thou not, O my servant Jacob... I will save thee from afar," bringing them to "rest," where "none shall make him afraid." The anchor of it all is God's presence: "For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee." His discipline is measured, not annihilating, "yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure." Judgment on His people is corrective and limited; His covenant purpose to save them cannot fail.

Gospel Focus

"For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee." This is the gospel in miniature. The God who disciplines is the same God who saves, and His abiding presence is the guarantee. The trouble is real, but so is the promise, "he shall be saved out of it." And notice how salvation centers on a King: "they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up." Centuries later God raised up that King, Jesus, the promised Saviour from David's seed (Acts 13:23), the Son of David who is Himself "the LORD their God" come in flesh. There is not a distant God and a separate David-king to serve; the one God became the Son of David to save and to reign. He is Emmanuel, "God with us," the living fulfillment of "I am with thee... to save thee." Notice too the mercy in the measure: "I will correct thee in measure." God's discipline of His own is never destruction but loving correction, "for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth" (Hebrews 12:6). If you are His and are passing through a "time of trouble," take heart: the correction is measured, the presence is promised, and the King has come to save. You "shall be saved out of it."

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God speaks with brutal honesty about the depth of the problem. "Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous. There is none to plead thy cause... thou hast no healing medicines." The nation's condition, brought on by its own sin, is beyond every human remedy. The allies they trusted, "all thy lovers," have abandoned them. And God does not soften His own hand in it: "I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy... for the multitude of thine iniquity." The wound is deserved; their crying over affliction cannot change that "I have done these things unto thee." The situation is, humanly, hopeless. Then the astonishing turn: "Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured." God will judge their oppressors, and, beyond all deserving, He announces pure grace: "For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD." The very One who inflicted the incurable wound will heal it. And the reason is His own compassion for the despised: "because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after." When the world had written them off as the forsaken city no one wanted, God set His heart to seek and heal them.

Gospel Focus

"Thy bruise is incurable... For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds." This is the pattern of salvation itself: first the honest, hopeless diagnosis, then the miracle of grace. Sin is a mortal wound we cannot heal, no medicine, no ally, no righteousness of our own can bind it up. "There is none to plead thy cause" was true of us all, until the One who is our Advocate came: "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1). The God who justly wounds is the God who freely heals, and He did it at the cross, where "with his stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). Notice the reason God gives for healing His people: not their worth, but their rejection, "they called thee an Outcast... whom no man seeketh after." God delights to seek the very ones the world discards. Jesus "is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). If you feel like an outcast, beyond cure, forgotten by everyone you leaned on, this word is for you: the Great Physician heals the incurable and seeks the unsought. Bring Him your mortal wound; His grace is the medicine that works where nothing else can.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God paints the restoration in vivid colours. He will "bring again the captivity of Jacob's tents," rebuild the ruined "city... upon her own heap," and fill it with "thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry." A mourning people will be multiplied, glorified, and no longer small. Their "congregation shall be established before me," and their oppressors punished. Then comes a remarkable promise about their leader: "their governor shall proceed from the midst of them", one of their own people, not a foreign ruler, "and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me." The language is priestly, and God marvels, "for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me?" Who would dare, and be able, to come near the holy God on the people's behalf? This ruler is both king and priest, a role no ordinary man could fill. At the center of the restoration stands the ancient covenant, renewed: "And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." The chapter closes by turning back to the storm of judgment that must first fall on the wicked, "the whirlwind of the LORD," which will accomplish "the intents of his heart", a truth His people would fully understand "in the latter days."

Gospel Focus

"Who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the LORD." The question hangs over the whole Bible. Who could dare draw near to the holy God, a Ruler who is also a Priest, one of us yet able to stand in God's very presence? The answer is Jesus Christ. He is the "governor" who "proceed[s] from the midst of them," the true Man of Israel, "made like unto his brethren" (Hebrews 2:17), yet He is the one who "engaged his heart to approach unto me," our great High Priest who "ever liveth to make intercession" (Hebrews 7:25). In Him, God did not send a distant substitute; the LORD Himself came in the flesh as the King-Priest who alone could draw near. And the wonder of the gospel is that He brings us with Him: because He approached, we may now "draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Hebrews 10:22). At the heart of it all is the covenant promise that runs through Scripture, "ye shall be my people, and I will be your God" (see also Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Revelation 21:3), the very goal of salvation, that God would have a people belonging to Himself and dwell among them. Through the one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus who is God with us, that promise is ours. Draw near through Him; He has opened the way.