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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 3:11 - 3:11
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Israel's return, pardon, and blessedness. - Jer 3:11. "And Jahveh said to me, The backsliding one, Israel, is justified more than the faithless one, Judah. Jer 3:12. Go and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, Turn, thou backsliding one, Israel, saith Jahveh; I will not look darkly on you, for I am gracious, saith Jahveh; I will not always be wrathful. Jer 3:13. Only acknowledge thy guilt, for from Jahveh thy God art thou fallen away, and hither and thither hast thou wandered to strangers under every green tree, but to my voice ye have not hearkened, saith Jahveh. Jer 3:14. Return, backsliding sons, saith Jahveh; for I have wedded you to me, and will take you, one out of a city and two out of a race, and will bring you to Zion; Jer 3:15. And will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they will feed you with knowledge ad wisdom. Jer 3:16. And it comes to pass, when ye increase and are fruitful in the land, in those days, saith Jahveh, they will no more say, 'The ark of the covenant of Jahveh;' and it will no more come to mind, and ye will not longer remember it or miss it, and it shall not be made again. Jer 3:17. In that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of Jahveh; and to it all peoples shall gather themselves, because the name of Jahveh is at Jerusalem: and no longer shall they walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart. Jer 3:18. In those days shall the house of Judah go along with the house of Israel, and together out of the land of midnight shall they come into the land which I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers." In Jer 3:11, from the comparison of the faithless Judah with the backsliding Israel, is drawn the conclusion: Israel stands forth more righteous than Judah. The same is said in other words by Eze 16:51.; cf. (Ezek.) Jer 23:11. צָדַק in Piel is to show to be righteous, to justify. נַפְשָׁהּ, her soul, i.e., herself. Israel appears more righteous than Judah, not because the apostasy and idolatry of the Israelites was less than that of the people of Judah; in this they are put on the same footing in Jer 3:6-10; in the like fashion both have played the harlot, i.e., stained themselves with idolatry (while by a rhetorical amplification the apostasy of Judah is in Jer 3:9 represented as not greater than that of Israel). But it is inasmuch as, in the first place, Judah had the warning example of Israel before its eyes, but would not be persuaded to repentance by Israel's punishment; then again, Judah had more notable pledges than the ten tribes of divine grace, especially in the temple with its divinely-ordained cultus, in the Levitical priesthood, and in its race of kings chosen by God. Hence its fall into idolatry called more loudly for punishment than did that of the ten tribes; for these, after their disruption from Judah and the Davidic dynasty, had neither a lawful cultus, lawful priests, nor a divinely-ordained kingship. If, then, in spite of these privileges, Judah sank as far into idolatry as Israel, its offence was greater and more grievous than that of the ten tribes; and it was surely yet more deserving of punishment than Israel, if it was resolved neither to be brought to reflection nor moved to repentance from its evil ways by the judgment that had fallen upon Israel, and if, on the contrary, it returned to God only outwardly and took the opus operatum of the temple-service for genuine conversion. For "the measure of guilt is proportioned to the measure of grace." Yet will not the Lord utterly cast off His people, Jer 3:12. He summons to repentance the Israelites who had now long been living in exile; and to them, the backsliding sons, who confess their sin and return to Him, He offers restoration to the full favours of the covenant and to rich blessings, and this in order to humble Judah and to provoke it to jealousy. The call to repentance which the prophet is in Jer 3:12 to proclaim towards the region of midnight, concerns the ten tribes living in Assyrian exile. צָפֹנַה, towards midnight, i.e., into the northern provinces of the Assyrian empire the tribes had been carried away (2Ki 17:6; 2Ki 18:11). שׁוּבָה, return, sc. to thy God. Notwithstanding that the subject which follows, מְשֻׁבָה, is fem., we have the masculine form here used ad sensum, because the faithless Israel is the people of the ten tribes. לֹא אַפִּיל פָּנַי, I will not lower my countenance, is explained by Gen 4:5; Job 29:24, and means to look darkly, frowningly, as outward expression of anger; and this without our needing to take פָּנַי for כַּעֲסִי as Kimchi does. For I am חָסִיד, gracious; cf. Exo 34:6. As to אֶטֹּור, see on Jer 3:5.