BECAUSE Israel and Judah are to be brought back to the land of their forefathers, not being cast away finally and forever (Romans 9:25-28; 11:1, 2), Jeremiah was directed to commit to writing what God had said to him (verse 2). It is this unalterable purpose of God to bless, however unworthy the objects of His grace may be, that fills the believing heart with adoration to Him who gave His Son for all who trust in Him.
What kind of “book” did Jeremiah have, in which to write? The Hebrew word translated “book” actually means “a writing”, but in chapter 36 we come to “a roll of a book” written with ink, and this book, in the end, was cut with a knife and cast into the fire by king Jehoiakim. In Psalm 40:7, the same Hebrew words have been translated “volume of the book”: this passage is quoted in Hebrews 10:7.
Although writing on stone and on clay tablets and cylinders was a common practice in Babylonia and adjacent lands, prepared skins of animals and papyrus were also in large use in the East, and we have little reason to doubt that it was on this form of writing material, made into a roll, that Jeremiah’s prophecies were written. It was in such “books” or scrolls that the Bible was handed down from generation to generation of the children of Israel, books as we now know them having come into general use after the invention of the printing press. It may be of interest to refer to Daniel 9:2; Deut. 31:24-26; 2 Kings 22; Nehemiah 8.
Verses 4 to 7 are concerned with a time yet to be; the children of Israel have known many sorrows since they turned away from God, and more particularly since Judah delivered up their Messiah to be crucified, but the fearful days of Matthew 24 and Mark 13 have yet to be experienced by them.
God is love, we know, but it is equally true that God is light. Both these truths are found in 1 John, and we would not forget that the former is not first in that Epistle; chapter 4 includes it, but “God is light” is in the first chapter. Both are evidenced in the eleventh verse of our chapter; the testimony of His love is “I am with thee to save thee”; but “I will correct thee with judgment” betokens the character of light in which God dwells. Men delude themselves with the thought that He will not deal with sins and sinners, since “all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet. 3:4), See Eccles, 8:11; Rom. 2:3-10, and the last two verses of our chapter.
After the promised severe judgments upon the Jews, God will bless them, and before the blessing is really known, He will have broken the yoke of the oppressor (verse 8). This enemy of the last days is the to-be-revived Roman empire, composed of the nations who occupy the territory held by the Caesars when Christ was upon earth. The ancient Babylon will be duplicated in its character (in God’s sight), but its duration will be short, and its end complete destruction.
Verse 9: David the king is here used to foreshadow Christ—”great David’s greater Son.” See 1 Chron. 17; Isa. 9:7; Psa. 110. Though the ten tribes of Israel were gone into captivity (and have since disappeared from the knowledge of men), and only Judah and. Benjamin remained in the land God had given them, this chapter and the next look onward to a reunited and restored Israel and Judah. The lost ten tribes will reappear, as Ezekiel 37 testifies.
Mark the utterly undone condition of Israel, as expressed in verses 12 to 15, and the purpose of God in verses 17 to 22; this is nothing less than sovereign grace—of the same character as the Christian has experienced—love flowing out to the unworthy. And it is the more remarkable because of the assurance of unsparing judgment (verses 16, 23, 24) that flanks the promise of grace.
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