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A Last Call to Return
v. 1. If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return unto Me, or, "if thou wilt return unto Me," the repetition serving to emphasize the anxious, merciful call of the Lord, and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of My sight, so that they no longer fill Him with loathing, then shall thou not remove, no longer waver, no more be an unsettled wanderer, running from one sanctuary of idolatry to the next.
v. 2. And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, not in hypocrisy, as formerly, in judgment, and in righteousness, in a just cause and with genuine uprightness of heart; and the nations, under the influence of this confession, shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him they shall glory, thereby becoming partakers of the blessings which were promised in the Messianic prophecies from the time of the patriarchs. The sincere conversion of Judah would have this effect upon the Gentiles, for such an open confession is a powerful argument for the truth. Cf Luk_22:32.
v. 3. For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, the capital being mentioned particularly as the center of Jewish worship, Break up your fallow ground, that of their hearts, which is like wild land overgrown with weeds, where cleansing is effected only by deep and repeated plowing, and sow not among thorns, in not removing hypocrisy and other evil growths.
v. 4. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the foreskins of your heart, the natural corruption which seriously interfered with the proper attitude toward the Lord, Cf Deu_10:16; Deu_30:6; Rom_2:29; Col_2:11, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, a sincere repentance being required of all of them, lest My fury come forth like fire and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. Just as the Lord required a circumcision of the heart in those days in addition to the circumcision of the body, so He insists upon the baptism with the Spirit in our days, lest we offend Him by insincerity.