Future blessing for Israel
33
📚Moreover the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah a second time, when he was still shut up in the courtyard of the prison, saying, 2 📚“Thus says the LORD the maker of the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it; the LORD is his name: 3 📚Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.33:3 When we pray to Jehovah the God of the Bible, we are praying to the mighty Creator of the universe. Prayer from a believing and upright heart (such as Jeremiah had) will reach His ears, will bring wonderful answers (Gen 18:32; Ps 3:4; 4:3; 18:6; 27:7; 28:1-2; 30:8; 55:17; Matt 7:7; Jam 5:16). Some of the great and unsearchable things of which God speaks here are recorded in the rest of the chapter.⚜
4 📚For thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah which have been torn down to use against the siege mounds and the sword, 5 📚as they come to fight with the Chaldeans: it is only to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I will slay in my anger and in my fury, since I have hidden my face from this city because of all their wickedness.
6 📚“See, I will bring health and healing to it, and I will heal them, and will reveal to them an abundance of peace and truth. 7 📚And I will cause the captives of Judah and the captives of Israel to return 📖, and will build them up, as at the first. 8 📚And I will cleanse them from all their wickedness, in which they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, in which they have sinned and in which they have transgressed against me. 9 📚And it will be for me a name of joy, a praise and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which will hear of all the good that I do for them; and they will fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I provide for it.
10 📚“Thus says the LORD: Again there will be heard in this place, which you say will be desolate without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without beast, 11 📚the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who will say,
‘Praise the LORD of hosts,
for the LORD is good,
for his mercy continues on forever’,
and the voice of those
who will bring the sacrifice of praise
into the house of the LORD.
For I will restore the captive land, as at the first, says the LORD.
12 📚“Thus says the LORD of hosts: Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all its cities, there will be dwelling places of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. 13 📚In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in the cities of the south, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, once more the flocks will pass under the hands of the one counting them, says the LORD.
14 📚“See, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 📚“In those days, and at that time,
I will cause the Branch of righteousness
to grow up for David;
and he will administer justice
and righteousness in the land.
16 📚In those days Judah will be saved,
and Jerusalem will dwell safely.
And this is the name by
which it will be called:
The LORD Our Righteousness.
33:15-16 These verses speak of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notes at Jer 23:5-6. God’s promises to Israel and Judah were not completely fulfilled at the time of the return from Babylon. “It” (v 16) – or “He”.⚜
17 📚“For thus says the LORD: David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, 18 📚and the priests the Levites will not lack a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to burn grain offerings, and to offer continual sacrifices 📖”.
33:18 The Lord Jesus as a man was descended from David and so could inherit his throne. It is more difficult to see how Jesus can fulfil the word here, for He was not descended from Levi, and His priesthood is not a continuation of the priesthood of Aaron. Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek (Heb 7:11-22). All believers in the New Testament are called priests (1 Pet 2:5, 9; Rev 1:6), but they have no connection with Levi. The words of this verse may be fulfilled in ways at present unknown to us (compare Ezek 40:44-46).⚜
19 And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 20 📚“Thus says the LORD: If you can break my covenant with the day, and my covenant with the night, so that day and night do not exist in their fixed times, 21 📚then my covenant with David my servant may also be broken, so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. 22 📚As the starry host of the heavens cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so I will increase the descendants of my servant David, and the Levites who minister to me”.
33:19-22 Compare Jer 31:35-37.⚜
23 📚Moreover the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 24 📚“Have you not considered what this people have spoken, saying, ‘The LORD has rejected the two families 📖 which he chose?’ So they have despised my people; they are no longer a nation, in their sight. 25 📚Thus says the LORD: If my covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, 26 📚then I will reject the offspring of Jacob, and my servant David, so that I do not take any of his offspring as rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for I will cause them to return from captivity 📖, and have mercy on them”.
33:26 The words “offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” suggest their physical descendants. So does the reference to “the two families” in v 24. In the New Testament Gentile believers are the spiritual children of Abraham (Rom 4:11, 16, 17; Gal 3:7, 29), but they are not called the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And the vast majority of Christians now were never a part of either of the two families mentioned in v 24.⚜