Jeremiah 30
Command to Write the Book of Consolation 1–4
The Time of Jacob's Trouble 5–7
Promise of Deliverance and the Davidic King 8–11
The Incurable Wound and Divine Healing 12–17
Restoration of the Land and People 18–22
Final Judgment on the Wicked 23–24
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Jeremiah 30
Verse 2
Write thee all the words… in a book — The command is given as the LORD gave it before: ‘Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee’ (36:2). After Jehoiakim burned that roll, Jeremiah dictated another to Baruch (36:32). Isa 30:8 has the same purpose: ‘note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever’.
Verse 3
Israel and Judah — Both names stand in the promise: the northern kingdom and Judah, whose ‘captivity’ the LORD returns (33:7), and with whom the new covenant is made, ‘with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah’ (31:31). ‘Possess it’ is the language of Deut 30:5: ‘the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it’.
Verse 6
a man doth travail with child — The question has an obvious answer, yet ‘every man’ is seen ‘with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail’. The image is used of Judah’s fear (6:24) and of Babylon’s king (50:43). ‘Paleness’ is yeraqon, the yellow-green of mildew, a word found elsewhere in blasting and mildew (Deut 28:22; Amos 4:9).
Verse 7
the time of Jacob’s trouble — Tsarah, distress, the word Jacob himself used of the day God ‘answered me in the day of my distress’ (Gen 35:3). Dan 12:1 speaks of ‘a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation’, with deliverance for those ‘found written in the book’; Matt 24:21 speaks of ‘great tribulation’. Here the promise is plain: ‘he shall be saved out of it’.
Verse 8
I will break his yoke — ‘Bonds’ is moserot, the word for the bonds Jeremiah wore in 27:2, and the ‘yoke of iron’ of 28:13–14 is the one broken. ‘Serve themselves of him’ is the phrase of 27:7, where nations served themselves of Babylon’s king; here strangers shall no more serve themselves of Jacob. Nah 1:13 has the same promise: ‘will I break his yoke from off thee’.
Verse 9
David their king — ‘Raise up’ is qum, the verb of 23:5, ‘I will raise unto David a righteous Branch’. Hos 3:5 says ‘shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king’, and Ezek 37:24, ‘David my servant shall be king over them’. Peter says David knew that God would ‘raise up Christ to sit on his throne’ (Acts 2:30).
Verse 11
correct thee in measure — The word is mishpat, judgment, as in Jeremiah’s prayer: ‘O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger’ (10:24). ‘Altogether unpunished’ is naqah, to clear as innocent, the verb of Exod 34:7, ‘that will by no means clear the guilty’. The promise of no ‘full end’ is repeated in 46:28.
Verse 12
Thy bruise is incurable — Shever, a breaking, with anush, incurable; Jeremiah said it of his own wound (15:18). The pairing ‘thy bruise… thy wound is grievous’ (shever, chalah) is spoken of Nineveh in Nah 3:19, and Isa 1:5–6 describes the same state: ‘the whole head is sick… wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores’. The healing is given in v.17.
Verse 14
All thy lovers have forgotten thee — ‘Lovers’ are the nations Judah courted: ‘thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria’ (2:36); Lam 1:2 records that ‘among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her’. The wound itself is the LORD’s, ‘the wound of an enemy’, given ‘for the multitude of thine iniquity’ (repeated in v.15).
Verse 16
all they that devour thee shall be devoured — Each clause gives the act back to the doer, three times: devour and be devoured, spoil and be a spoil, prey and be given for a prey. Isa 33:1 says it of the destroyer: ‘when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled’. The ‘adversaries’ who ‘go into captivity’ answer the captivity of v.3.
Verse 17
I will restore health unto thee — Arukah, new growth of flesh over a wound, the word of 8:22, ‘why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?’, and of 33:6, ‘I will bring it health and cure’. ‘Outcast’ is nadach, ‘driven’, the verb of 23:3, ‘whither I have driven them’. The LORD is the one ‘that healeth thee’ (Exod 15:26).
Verse 18
builded upon her own heap — Tel, a mound of ruins. Deut 13:16 says of a condemned city, ‘it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again’, and 49:2 of Rabbah that it ‘shall be a desolate heap’. Here the city rises on its own heap, and the LORD will ‘have mercy on his dwellingplaces’.
Verse 21
engaged his heart — Arab, to pledge, the verb of standing surety: ‘I will be surety for him’ (Gen 43:9), ‘Be surety for thy servant for good’ (Ps 119:122). The ruler is ‘of themselves’, from the midst of them, and the LORD brings him near. Ezek 34:24 gives the same figure: ‘my servant David a prince among them’.
Verse 22
ye shall be my people, and I will be your God — The words first spoken at the exodus: ‘I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God’ (Exod 6:7). They return in the new covenant (31:33; 32:38), and Rev 21:3 closes with them: ‘they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God’.
Verse 23
the whirlwind of the LORD — The verse repeats 23:19, spoken there against the false prophets, with ‘continuing’ for ‘grievous’. Sa’arah, whirlwind, is the storm in which ‘the LORD hath his way’ (Nah 1:3). It falls ‘upon the head of the wicked’, and stands here between the promise of v.22 and the closing line of v.24.
Verse 24
in the latter days ye shall consider it — The words repeat 23:20, which ends ‘ye shall consider it perfectly’. Acharit hayamim, the latter days, is the phrase of Jacob’s blessing (Gen 49:1), ‘in the last days’, and of Moses’ word that ‘in the latter days’ Israel would turn to the LORD (Deut 4:30). Hos 3:5 uses it of Israel seeking ‘David their king’.