Jeremiah 31
Jeremiah 31 is mercy breaking clean through judgment. For chapter after chapter the prophet has announced the same hard news - the collapse of Judah, the burning of the temple, the long road into exile - and watched it come true. But here the LORD turns the prophet's gaze past the ruin to a restoration on the far side of it. I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee (v. 3). This is not a fresh affection kindled once the punishment had run its course; it is the same love that carried Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness, never once let go, and now reaches into exile to draw the people home. The chapter promises a return so complete that the virgin of Israel will dance again, the watchmen will cry Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion, and mourning will be turned into joy.3
At the heart of the chapter is a promise unlike anything in the books that came before it. The covenant made at Sinai was written on stone - carried in the ark, read aloud, external - and the people broke it, because no law carved outside a person can finally change the person within. So the LORD announces something new: I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people (v. 33). The law is not abolished but relocated, moved from tablets of stone into the human heart itself, where obedience can at last flow from desire rather than dread. And the promise runs to its deepest ground: I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more (v. 34). This is the most-quoted Old Testament passage in all the New Testament, set down whole in the book of Hebrews not once but twice.
Around that center the chapter gathers grief and gladness together. A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children… because they were not (v. 15) - a cry the Gospel will hear again over Bethlehem. Ephraim is overheard repenting like a child coming home, and the LORD answers with a tenderness that startles: my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him (v. 20). The land will be refreshed, sour-grape fatalism will end, and every one shall die for his own iniquity (v. 30) - each person standing in his own accountability before God. The whole long word closes by anchoring the promise to the most reliable things there are: as surely as the sun rises and the stars hold their courses, so surely will the LORD keep His people and rebuild His city, never to be thrown down again.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Jeremiah 31:1-6I Have Loved Thee with an Everlasting Love
1At the same time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. 2Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. 3The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. 4Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. 5Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things. 6For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God.
The chapter opens on the note the whole book has been straining toward: At the same time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people (v. 1). After all the oracles of ruin, here is the ancient covenant pledge restored whole - not a remnant patched back together, but all the families of Israel reclaimed as His own. The next line looks back to the founding story to make its point: The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness (v. 2). The wilderness was where the LORD first led a freed people and gave them rest; now He invokes that memory over a people facing a second wilderness of exile, promising the same grace will find them there. And then the verse the rest of the chapter rests upon: I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee (v. 3). Notice the order. The love comes first, and the drawing follows from it - therefore. God does not draw Israel in order to begin loving her; He draws her because He has loved her all along. This is not affection kindled after judgment burned the old away. It is the love that was there before the exile, underneath the exile, on the far side of the exile - the same love that has never once let go.1
The LORD promises not merely to pardon but to rebuild: Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry (v. 4). The double phrase - I will build… and thou shalt be built - presses the certainty of it; what the LORD undertakes will surely stand. And the tenderness of the title is easy to miss: He calls a defeated, scattered nation virgin of Israel, as though her shame and her ruin had not stripped that name from her. The restoration He pictures is not grim survival but celebration. The tabrets are the small hand-drums struck at festivals; the dancing belongs to weddings and harvests and homecomings. After exile there will be music again, and the joy will not be the forced merriment of captives but the free gladness of a people at home with their God. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria (v. 5) - the very hills laid waste by invading armies will be terraced and green again, the planters eating their own fruit in peace. The God who tears down is the God who builds, and the building is always toward joy.
The first movement ends with a cry rising from the high country: For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God (v. 6). The picture is full of healing. Ephraim was the heart of the northern kingdom, long since fallen and carried off by Assyria, its worship split from Jerusalem for generations. Yet here the watchmen of Ephraim - the very region that had broken away - are the ones calling the pilgrimage back to Zion. The old division between north and south is swallowed up in a single summons to worship the one LORD together. There is also something in who raises the cry. Watchmen stood on the heights to spot danger and sound alarm; their voice usually meant threat. Now their cry is not warning but invitation - not flee, but let us go up. The first thing the gathered people do is not rebuild their own fortunes but return to God. Restoration, all through this chapter, runs toward worship: the homecoming is finally a coming home to Him.3
Jeremiah 31:7-14He That Scattered Israel Will Gather Him
7For thus saith the LORD; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O LORD, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. 8Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither. 9They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. 10Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. 11For the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. 12Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. 13Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. 14And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD.
The LORD calls for singing before the rescue has even arrived: Sing with gladness for Jacob… publish ye, praise ye, and say, O LORD, save thy people, the remnant of Israel (v. 7). The praise runs ahead of the deliverance because the One who promised it cannot fail. Then He describes the homecoming, and the detail is striking: I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together (v. 8). An ordinary king marching home would leave the weak behind - the blind slow the column, the lame cannot keep pace, the pregnant woman and the one already in labor are a burden on a hard road. The LORD names exactly these as the ones He brings. None is too weak to be carried home; the very people a human rescue would abandon are the people He gathers. And the reason is given as the warmest of names: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn (v. 9). The God of the whole earth stoops to the language of family. He leads them not as a commander drives troops but as a father walks his children along a safe road - by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble.
Verse 10 turns to address the watching world: Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. The nations that witnessed Israel's humiliation are summoned to witness her rescue, and to carry the news to the farthest coasts. The same hand that scattered will gather - the judgment and the mercy belong to one God with one purpose, and that purpose was never destruction for its own sake. The shepherd image is gentle and total: a shepherd not only collects his sheep but keeps them, watching through the night, going after the strays. Then verse 11 names what God has done in the strongest covenant words available: the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. To redeem is to buy back what was lost; to ransom is to pay the price that sets a captive free. Israel was held by a power too strong for her - she could not break out herself. So the LORD pays the price and pulls her free. The exile looked like the triumph of a stronger hand; the prophet says there is a stronger hand still, and it belongs to her Redeemer.
The section rises to a picture of joy so complete it leaves no room for the old grief: they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD… and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all (v. 12). The image of the watered garden is everything a people parched by exile could long for - green, fed by hidden springs, fruitful, at rest. And then the line that gathers the whole chapter's hope into a single phrase: I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow (v. 13). The verb matters - God does not merely interrupt the mourning or distract from it; He turns it, converts the very grief into gladness, so that the place of deepest sorrow becomes the place of deepest joy. Old and young dance together, the generation that wept in exile and the generation born to freedom rejoicing side by side. This is the answer the chapter keeps giving to every tear it names: the LORD is not in the business of merely ending sorrow but of transforming it. The God who turns mourning into joy is the same yesterday and forever, and the promise outruns its first occasion by centuries.
Jeremiah 31:15-22A Voice Heard in Ramah
15Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. 16Thus saith the LORD; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. 17And there is hope in thine end, saith the LORD, that thy children shall come again to their own border. 18Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God. (I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke.) 19Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. 20Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD. 21Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities. 22How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.
A single verse breaks the rising joy with the sound of a mother's grief: A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not (v. 15). Rachel was the beloved wife of Jacob and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin - a matriarch of the nation - and tradition placed her tomb near Ramah, the town on the road north out of Jerusalem. Ramah was a staging-point: it was from near there that captives were gathered and marched into exile. So the prophet pictures Rachel, the mother of Israel, weeping from her grave as her children file past into captivity, refused to be comforted… because they were not. The phrase is heavy - they were not, they are gone, the children carried away as if swallowed up. Jeremiah does not rush past the grief to get to the comfort. He lets the weeping stand at full volume first, naming it honestly: there are sorrows that refuse easy comfort, and the LORD does not pretend otherwise. The verse is one of the most piercing in the book - and the Gospel will pick it up and set it down over another night of slaughtered children, so that even this cry is folded into the coming of the world's hope.2
To the weeping the LORD speaks the only comfort that can answer it - not it does not matter, but it will not last: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded… and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end… that thy children shall come again to their own border (vv. 16-17). The lost children are not lost forever. There is hope in thine end. Then the prophet lets us overhear Ephraim - the wayward northern kingdom - coming to himself in exile, and the words are a model of true repentance: Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God (v. 18). Notice the prayer's deepest cry: turn thou me, and I shall be turned. Ephraim does not boast that he will reform himself; he asks God to do the turning. He has learned that a heart cannot wrench itself back on its own - the very turning must be a gift. After that I was turned, I repented (v. 19): the change of heart and the sorrow over sin came after God turned him, not before. This is the human side of the new covenant the chapter is about to announce - a people who know they cannot mend themselves and ask the LORD to do within them what they cannot do alone.
The LORD's answer to Ephraim's prayer is one of the most moving disclosures of the divine heart in all the prophets: Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD (v. 20). The questions are not cold; they are the questions of a yearning parent. Even as He was speaking words of judgment against Ephraim, His heart never stopped going out to him - I do earnestly remember him still. The old phrase my bowels are troubled reaches for the deepest seat of feeling a Hebrew speaker knew; we might say His heart aches, His whole inward being is stirred with compassion. Here is the astonishing thing the chapter keeps insisting on: the God who disciplines is not a God whose love switches off during the discipline. The correction itself was an expression of the love, and the moment the child turns home the father's yearning breaks out in mercy. So the LORD calls: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities (v. 21). The way home is marked; the Father is watching the road. And He marvels that He must keep calling at all: How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? (v. 22). The mercy is ready; only the turning remains.
Jeremiah 31:23-30Every One Shall Die for His Own Iniquity
23Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity; The LORD bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness. 24And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities thereof together, husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks. 25For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul. 26Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me. 27Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. 28And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD. 29In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. 30But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.
The promise of return widens to fill the whole land. There will come a day when the old blessing is spoken again over a restored Jerusalem: The LORD bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness (v. 23). The city that became a byword for ruin will be renamed for what God makes it - a home of justice, a mountain of holiness. Ordinary life resumes in its goodness: farmers and shepherds dwell together again across Judah (v. 24), the rhythms of planting and grazing restored. And the LORD names the deepest need He means to meet: For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul (v. 25). The words reach past crops and cities to the inner person - the weary soul, the sorrowful soul. What exile drained, the LORD refills; the tiredness that goes deeper than the body and the sorrow that no harvest can touch are exactly what He undertakes to satisfy. Then comes a quiet, almost startling line: Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me (v. 26). The prophet, it seems, had received these promises in a vision or a dream, and woke to find the comfort still resting on him. After a book heavy with sleepless dread, Jeremiah's own rest had been sweet - the first man to taste the peace the chapter promises.
The LORD then reaches for a farming image to describe what He is doing with His people: Behold, the days come… that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast (v. 27). A field stripped bare will be sown again and grow thick with people and herds. And He sets the coming mercy directly against the past judgment, word for word: like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant (v. 28). This sentence quietly answers the whole first half of the book. Back at his call, Jeremiah was told his commission was to root out, and to pull down… to build, and to plant - and for forty years it had been almost all rooting out. Now the LORD declares the turn: the same vigilant attention that oversaw the tearing-down will now oversee the building-up. The God who watched Judah fall is not done watching; He watches still, and now His watching is for her good. Judgment was never the goal. It was the painful clearing of ground for a planting that always lay on the other side of it.
The section ends by retiring a bitter proverb the exiles had been repeating: In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge (v. 29). The saying was a complaint - a way of grumbling that the present generation was merely suffering for the sins of the generations before them, trapped in a doom they had not chosen, with God unfair to make them pay. The LORD answers it plainly: But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge (v. 30). The future He is opening will be marked by personal accountability. No one will be able to hide behind my fathers ruined it; each person will stand before God in his own responsibility - and, just as truly, with his own access to mercy. This is a word of dignity as much as of duty. It means your standing with God is not sealed by your family's past, your inheritance, or the failures of those who came before you. The chains of inherited fate are struck off. Each heart deals with God directly - which is exactly the kind of people the new covenant, announced in the very next verses, will create: a people who each know the LORD for themselves.3
Jeremiah 31:31-34Behold, the Days Come · A New Covenant
31Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Here is the summit of the book, and one of the high places of all the Scriptures: Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah (v. 31). It is the only place in the Old Testament where the phrase new covenant appears, and everything the chapter has said - the everlasting love, the gathering, the turning, the personal accountability - has been climbing toward it. The LORD first marks what is wrong with the old arrangement: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them (v. 32). The fault was never in the covenant itself - the law given at Sinai was holy and good. The fault was in the people, who brake it. A covenant written on stone could tell them what to do; it could not make them want to do it, could not reach inside and change the heart that kept turning away. And notice the wound in the word husband. The broken covenant was not a mere contract violated but a marriage betrayed - the LORD speaks as a faithful spouse whose love was answered with unfaithfulness. The new covenant will not fail where the old one did, because it will repair the very thing that failed: not the terms, but the heart that could not keep them.
The LORD then names what the new covenant will actually do, and the first promise reaches into the place the old covenant could never touch: I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts (v. 33). The law is not abolished - it is the same law, the same will of God - but it is moved. What was once carved on tablets of stone and carried outside the people will now be written within them, on the heart itself, so that obedience can rise from desire instead of being imposed from without. The deepest human problem was never a shortage of instruction; it was a heart at odds with the instruction. This promise meets that problem at its root. Then comes the covenant's second great pledge, the oldest and most cherished promise in all of Scripture: and will be their God, and they shall be my people. It is the very vow first spoken to Abraham and renewed at Sinai - the heart of every covenant God has ever made - and here it is given again, secured now in a way that cannot be broken because the law is written where it cannot be lost. Belonging is the goal: not merely a people who keep rules, but a people who are His, with God truly and fully theirs.
The covenant's third promise widens the circle to everyone: And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them (v. 34). Under the old order the knowledge of God was, in large measure, mediated - it came down through priests and prophets, the few who stood near and passed it to the many. The new covenant promises something startlingly democratic: a direct, personal knowledge of God available to all, from the least of them unto the greatest. The phrase deliberately reaches to both edges - the youngest and the oldest, the obscure and the eminent, the unschooled and the learned. The wall between the spiritually elite and the ordinary believer comes down. This does not mean teachers vanish or that learning ceases; it means the deepest knowledge of God - the knowing that comes from belonging to Him, heart to heart - will no longer be the privilege of a class but the inheritance of every member of the covenant. The smallest and least impressive person in the kingdom will know God personally, not at second hand. And the ground of that universal knowing is given last, as the foundation that holds up all the rest - the fourth and deepest promise of all.
The whole new covenant rests at last on a single word, and it is the most needed word a sinner can hear: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more (v. 34). Notice the little word for - this is the reason behind everything else. The law can be written on the heart, God can be truly theirs, all can know Him from least to greatest, because their iniquity is forgiven and their sin is remembered no more. Pardon is the foundation the covenant is built on, not an afterthought tacked to the end. And consider what is promised: not merely that sins are overlooked or set aside, but that God will remember them no more. This is not divine forgetfulness, as if the all-knowing God misplaced a fact; it is a deliberate, covenant pledge never to bring the sin up again, never to hold it against the forgiven, never to let it stand between Himself and His people. The slate is not merely wiped - it is promised never to be re-read. Every other gift of the new covenant flows from this open fountain of mercy. A people whose sins are remembered no more are free to draw near, free to be taught from within, free to belong without fear. The deepest thing the chapter has to give is not a renovated rule but a clean conscience before God.2
Jeremiah 31:35-40If Those Ordinances Depart
35Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: 36If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. 37Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD. 38Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner. 39And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb, and shall compass about to Goath. 40And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the LORD; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever.
Having promised the new covenant, the LORD now anchors its certainty to the most dependable things in all creation: Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name (v. 35). He names Himself by His works - the One who set the sun in its course and the moon and stars in theirs, who fixed the rhythms that have held steady since creation. Then He stakes His promise on them: If those ordinances depart from before me… then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever (v. 36). The logic is as strong as language can make it. As long as the sun keeps rising and the stars keep their courses, the LORD's people stand secure before Him - and only if the cosmos itself fails could His commitment fail. He presses the same point from the other direction: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel (v. 37). The height of heaven cannot be measured; the deep foundations of the earth cannot be plumbed; just so, His holding of His people cannot be undone. The new covenant is not a fragile hope hung on Israel's good behavior. It is as fixed as the orbits and as unsearchable as the heavens, because it rests on the faithfulness of the One whose name is the LORD of hosts.
The chapter closes by walking the perimeter of a rebuilt Jerusalem, naming its landmarks one by one: the days come… that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner, the measuring line running out to the hill Gareb and round to Goath (vv. 38-39). The detail is the point. This is not a vague, spiritualized hope but a concrete promise of a real city restored, surveyed corner to corner, every gate and tower accounted for. And then the most striking turn of all: the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron… shall be holy unto the LORD (v. 40). The valley named here was a place of horror - the dumping-ground of corpses and ashes, associated with idolatry and death, the most defiled ground around the city. The LORD declares that even this will be made holy to Him. Nothing is too unclean for His restoring; the very ground that symbolized death and shame is claimed for holiness. And the final word seals every promise the chapter has made: it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever. The book that began with rooting out and throwing down ends here - with a city, and a people, that will never be thrown down again. The everlasting love of verse 3 has its everlasting end: a holy people, in a holy place, secured forever.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Jeremiah 31 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for ahavat olam (v. 3, the “everlasting love”), for berit chadashah (v. 31, “a new covenant”), and for the much-weighed phrase about the law written in their inward parts (v. 33).
- Jeremiah 31 ↔ Hebrews 8 & 10 · Matthew 2 · Luke 22Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Jeremiah 31 to the rest of Scripture - the new-covenant promise (vv. 31-34) quoted in full at Hebrews 8:8-12 and again at Hebrews 10:16-17, the cup of the new testament in my blood (Luke 22:20), and Rachel's weeping (v. 15) heard once more over Bethlehem in Matthew 2:18.
- Jeremiah 31 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Jeremiah 31 - the force of everlasting love and the verb “drawn” in verse 3, the geography and grief of Ramah in verse 15, the proverb of the sour grapes in verses 29-30, and the language of the new covenant in verses 31-34.
Where this echoes in Scripture
I Have Loved Thee with an Everlasting Love
- John 6:44No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.The drawing love of verse 3 named by Christ - the Father drawing people to the Son.
- Hosea 11:4I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love... and I laid meat unto them.The same image as verse 3 - the LORD drawing His people not by force but by the cords of love.
- Romans 5:8God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.The everlasting love of verse 3 made visible - love that reaches the beloved before any change in them.
- Isaiah 54:7-8with great mercies will I gather thee... with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.A sister promise - the everlasting kindness that gathers Israel after the brief moment of judgment (v. 3).
- Jeremiah 32:41I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul.The rebuilding of verses 4-5 echoed - the LORD planting His people again, wholeheartedly.
He That Scattered Israel Will Gather Him
- John 10:11I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.The shepherd who gathers and keeps the flock (v. 10) named in person - the one who lays down His life for the sheep.
- Ezekiel 34:12-13As a shepherd seeketh out his flock... so will I seek out my sheep... and will bring them to their own land.The same promise as verses 10-12 - God Himself gathering the scattered flock and bringing them home.
- 1 Peter 1:18-19ye were not redeemed with corruptible things... But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish.The ransom of verse 11 fulfilled - the price paid to free those held by a stronger hand.
- Isaiah 35:10the ransomed of the LORD shall return... and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.The watered-garden joy of verses 12-13 - the redeemed returning with everlasting joy, all sorrow gone.
- Revelation 21:4God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes... neither shall there be any more sorrow nor crying.The end of the promise in verse 12 - the day when God’s people shall not sorrow any more at all.
A Voice Heard in Ramah
- Matthew 2:17-18In Rama was there a voice heard... Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.Verse 15 quoted directly - the weeping of Ramah heard again over the slaughtered infants of Bethlehem.
- Luke 15:20when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck.The yearning father of verse 20 - the heart that aches for the wayward child and runs to meet his return.
- Lamentations 5:21Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.The same prayer as verse 18 - asking God to do the turning the heart cannot do for itself.
- Hosea 11:8How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?... mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.The troubled bowels of verse 20 - the divine heart stirred with mercy over the very Ephraim it must discipline.
- Psalm 30:5weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.The comfort of verses 16-17 - the bitter weeping of Ramah given a morning on the far side of it.
Every One Shall Die for His Own Iniquity
- Ezekiel 18:20The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.The same truth as verses 29-30 - the end of inherited fate, each person accountable before God for himself.
- Isaiah 53:6All we like sheep have gone astray... and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.The answer to verse 30 - the iniquity each must bear, laid instead upon the Servant.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.How personal accountability (v. 30) meets grace - the sinless One bearing the iniquity that was ours.
- Jeremiah 1:10to root out, and to pull down... to build, and to plant.Jeremiah’s original commission - the building and planting promised in verse 28 finally arriving.
- Matthew 11:28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.The satisfied weary soul of verse 25 - the rest held out to every burdened, sorrowful soul.
Behold, the Days Come · A New Covenant
- Hebrews 8:8-12I will make a new covenant... I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts... I will remember their sins no more.Verses 31-34 quoted in full - the new covenant proven to have come in Christ, the Mediator of a better covenant.
- Hebrews 10:16-17I will put my laws into their hearts... And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.The promise of verses 33-34 quoted again - the proof that one offering has settled the matter of sin for ever.
- Luke 22:20This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.The new covenant of verse 31 cut at last - sealed not in the blood of animals but in the blood of the Mediator.
- 2 Corinthians 3:3written not with ink... not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.The inward law of verse 33 - written by the Spirit on the heart, no longer carved on stone.
- Ezekiel 36:26-27A new heart also will I give you... I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.The companion promise to verse 33 - the new heart and indwelling Spirit that make the inward law possible.
If Those Ordinances Depart
- Hebrews 12:22-24ye are come unto mount Sion... the heavenly Jerusalem... and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.The city built to the LORD (vv. 38-40) seen in its fullness - the heavenly Jerusalem, joined to the Mediator of the new covenant.
- Revelation 21:2-3I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem... God himself shall be with them, and be their God.The unshakable holy city of verse 40 - and the new-covenant promise “I will be their God” brought to its end.
- Psalm 89:36-37His seed shall endure for ever... It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven.The same pledge as verses 35-36 - God’s covenant made as sure as the enduring sun and moon.
- Isaiah 54:10the mountains shall depart... but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed.The unbreakable security of verses 36-37 - a covenant surer than the mountains and the orbits of heaven.
- Hebrews 11:10he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.The city built to the LORD (v. 38) as the object of faith - the lasting city God Himself builds.