Skip to main content

Jeremiah 31:7-9 - Sing aloud with gladness - Day 215

My fellow exiles and sojourners,

I pray that today's reading is of great encouragement to you as we seek the Celestial City.  Sometimes it is easy to get lost in the prophetic curses and blessings. One minute is destruction and the next is is building up.  We have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved.  There is a tension between the "Now" and the "not yet"

Blessings,

Jeff

This chapter is absolutely stunning.  The exile is now on the doorstep and Jeremiah is given a promise of restoration of unbelievable proportions.  Something that only God could accomplish.  

Observations:

At the end of 70 years of exile, the people are to "Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel."  This is the promise that is to keep them going through difficult times.

V 8&9 describe how extensive the restoration will be.  Absolutely no one will be left behind because even the least able to travel will return.  The lame and the blind will come.  Pregnant women and those in labor. (contrast with Jesus warnings about tribulation - Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, 18 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. 19 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! Matthew 24:17-19)

The end of V9 tells us why - The Lord is a father to Israel and Ephraim is my firstborn.  God does this not because of how Israel has reformed itself during the exile, but because of who He is.

Thoughts:

Sadly, the real return after 70 years can not be said to fit this promise.  It was in stages spread over many years.  Those who did return were not exactly joyous.

Revelation seems to have the same goal.  Between the end of apostolic age and now, the Church has been in exile in many ways.  Revelation is the promise that will keep us going until the shadowy image of Jeremiah is fully realized.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leviticus 18:21 - Partial restoration of creation order

Dear Friends, Some times we forget that Moses wrote Genesis.  Obviously, he did not have first hand knowledge of the events of creation.  But God did and revealed them to Moses.  The "story arc" is clear to Moses despite the millenia of history between Genesis and Leviticus.  The plan for ultimate restoration is hazy, but God is at work repairing some of the damage. Blessings, Jeff What is the prohibition on child sacrifice doing in the list of prohibited sexual relations? Be fruitful and multiply - First commandment in Genesis.  God made the world to be inhabited.   Having children is how this  was to happen.  So child sacrifice was a direct violation of this first command to Adam and Eve. Marriage is one man and one woman is the creation order. Seems simple enough.  I can imagine men thinking, Yeah but God didn't say which woman.  I will do the one woman thing if she is my sister, or aunt or …..  So God gives all these examples of unlawful unions.  To this day, man stil
Post a Comment
Read more

1 Chronicles 24:1-6 How about those Levites! Day 332

Good morning friends, Good foundations are important.  Our author turns to the religious life of the returning exiles. Blessings, Jeff We have seen the emphasis on the Davidic line in the  political life of Israel.  The other area of emphasis is the Aaronic priesthood and Levitical workers. In this passage we have a quick review of the somewhat sanitized picture of the start of Aaron's line.  The returning exiles would have known that Nadab and Abihu did not just "die before their father without children".  They rebelled against God by offering unauthorized fire and were themselves consumed by fire from the Lord. Leviticus 10.  The case of Abiathar  son of Ahitub son of Ahimelech, who was faithful to David, but later rebelled with Adonijah is also not mentioned. But the passage points to the importance of the Aaronic line to the rebuilding of the temple by the exiles.  The history of the northern kingdom which was without the Levites from the beginning could not be repeat
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" becomes "no mere man since the fall
Post a Comment
Read more