Summary: This remarkable restoration chapter continue and the aspect changes here to Samaria (Ephraim) for all Samaria and Judah will be enclosed in the great restoration of Israel after the Church is raptured. This is Part B of this chapter. One Part remains.

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL – JEREMIAH – PART 5 – Chapter 31 (Part B) – RACHAEL WEEPS BUT WILL BE GLORIOUSLY COMFORTED AND RESTORED

We continue this study in the Restoration of Israel as detailed by God in Jeremiah. Currently we have entered into the glorious truth of Chapter 31 and there are two more postings for this Chapter. This chapter 31 is probably the most enlightening in all the bible for Israel’s future restoration and blessings that happen when Jesus Christ the Messiah returns to Jerusalem to reign after the dark days for Israel in the Tribulation that follows the Rapture of the Church.

{{Jeremiah 31:15 Thus says the LORD, “A VOICE IS HEARD IN RAMAH, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”

Jeremiah 31:16 Thus says the LORD, “Restrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears for your work shall be rewarded,” declares the LORD, “and they shall return from the land of the enemy.”

Jeremiah 31:17 “AND THERE IS HOPE FOR YOUR FUTURE,” DECLARES THE LORD, “AND YOUR CHILDREN SHALL RETURN TO THEIR OWN TERRITORY.”}}

VERSES 15-17. Verse 15 is quoted in the New Testament at the time of the slaughter of the infants by Herod. To apply that verse to Herod’s time only is very limiting because it could also have application to the double destruction of Jerusalem and even to the Nazi atrocities. The remainder of the verses in this section is significant as it goes beyond those times and into the Tribulation and the Restoration of Israel. The Jews will be terribly persecuted in the Tribulation and one can hear Rachel weeping.

Verse 15 is not final for we move to verse 16 and the sunshine of hope bursts on the scene. God will reward their work as the recompense for all this trouble they underwent, and now the time arrives and they enter into blessing. This verse, when speaking of the return from the land of the enemy, definitely can apply to the return from the Babylonian captivity, but to confine it to that is imperfect.

They were murdered and exiled from their land in 70 AD and in 135 AD. The greater application for verse 16 is the return at the start of the Millennium from the lands today, nearly all of them enemies of the Jews. Verse 17 is one of great hope, for in their future they will come to their own territory. There is not much hope in returning, as from the Babylonian captivity, only to find yourself confronted by enemies, and then the horrible Seleucids, and then the Romans and then full destruction of their land – and later on the Roman Catholic Church, Luther, Hitler and the anti-Semitism of today. No, when they return in the future it will be permanent and in great hope and joy, never to be bothered by enemies again. We must get the setting correct.

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{{Jeremiah 31:18 I have surely heard Ephraim grieving, ‘You hast chastised me, and I was chastised, like an untrained calf. Bring me back that I may be restored, for You are the LORD my God,

Jeremiah 31:19 for after I turned back, I repented, and after I was instructed, I smote on my thigh. I was ashamed, and also humiliated, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’

Jeremiah 31:20 “Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him. Therefore My heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” declares the LORD.}}

This follow-on section will place these prophecies in the correct context and that is for the future. It can not apply to the return from captivity for the following reasons –

1. It speaks of Ephraim, the Northern Kingdom, destroyed by Assyria in about 722 BC, some 135 years before Jeremiah. They had nothing to do with Babylon.

2. Ephraim (Samaria) was dispersed far and wide and there was no way whatever they have been restored up to this point.

3. In verse 20 God is going to have mercy on Ephraim/Israel because of their repentance. They are requesting restoration. That has not happened.

VERSE 18. God is saying He has heard Ephraim grieving with repentance and requesting restoration. There is an acknowledgement of their failure, and that Jehovah is their God. That has never happened because the Northern Kingdom after their dispersion became a disparate people. However when God works in the Tribulation through the gospel, all Israel (remembering it will be a remnant) will turn to God and be saved and then restored to their land. God knows the lineage of His Jewish people and who are the rightful descendants of Abraham, even though the Jews of today do not know their tribal descent, and many are descended from Jacob in the world and do not know it, because the line has been lost over time. Failure to know they are of direct Jacob descent, does not bar them from blessing that comes to the descendants of Jacob.

This is the same return Hosea speaks of in {{Hosea 1:11 “The sons of JUDAH and the sons of ISRAEL will be gathered together and they will appoint for themselves one leader, and they will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.}} And in {{Hosea 3:4-5 for the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols. AFTERWARD THE SONS OF ISRAEL WILL RETURN AND SEEK THE LORD THEIR GOD and David their king, and they will come trembling to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days.”}}

VERSE 19. This has have the correct order; turning back after 2700 years; then repentance; then instruction; and then shame with acknowledgement of the evil days since from around 3000 years. Israel will be ashamed for its sin and then will mourn in line with verse 19. Zechariah 13:10-11 also covers this.

VERSE 20. God’s tenderness is revealed with “My dear son” and “delightful child” and “My heart yearns for him.” The covenant with Abraham covers all these wayward Jews and they will come into blessing, not now, for these are the times of the Gentiles, but afterwards, God’s yearning heart for His “dear son” and “delightful child” will bring it all about. Verse 20 ends with “I will surely have mercy on him,” and it is God’s mercy, compassion and love that has not faded for His people. It never will.

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{{Jeremiah 31:21 “Set up for yourself road marks. Place for yourself guideposts. Direct your mind to the highway, the way by which you went. Return, O virgin of Israel. Return to these your cities.

Jeremiah 31:22 “How long will you go here and there, O faithless daughter for the LORD has created a new thing in the earth - a woman will encompass a man?”}}

VERSES 21-22. Commands are given here, and what it means is that the nation must retrace its steps. They must note carefully (and that is why signs or guideposts must be in order) the path they took away from God, and retrace all those errors, correcting them in the way back to God. Although those orders are given to the people, it is not in their power to do that. God must draw people to Himself, the Holy Spirit stirring their hearts and minds to return. A man left to himself will never return to God.

VERSE 21. Here, now, God tells the virgin of Israel to return, and to return to the cities from which they came. Well, of course those cities do not exist, especially the Samaritan ones, and Islam controls some of them, but that won’t be a problem with God. In these interim years, has the Lord abandoned Israel? Please don’t miss the significance of “virgin” in verse 21. Over and over and over the Old Testament prophets referred to Israel as an adulterous wife as she was joined to idols and cast off God. The Lord calls Israel a perverted nation and in adultery all the time, so why do we have this change here to virgin? It is simple. It is for the same reason God calls you and me saints. God sees us as clothed with the righteousness of Christ and will never take account of our past sin. In verse 21 He sees Israel clothed with the righteousness of restoration and thus, He is seeing her as a virgin in the wooing passage.

VERSE 22. Then there is a change in verse 22. God questions His faithless people asking why they go all over the place (and the inference is why they won’t return), and here He addresses them as “faithless daughter” and not virgin. We are now in real time, not looking at the future with gracious acceptance. The end of verse 22 is quite strange – “a woman will encompass a man.” I resorted to a couple of commentaries to try to understand this –

Gabelein: [[Backsliding Israel is exhorted and the assurance is given, “A woman shall compass a man.” It refers to Israel as the woman, the timid, weak, forsaken one, who now will compass a man: that is have power given unto her to become the ruler. (Some have translated this difficult passage, “The woman shall be turned into a man.”). Then follows the promise of assurance.]]

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges: [[No explanation that has been given of the latter part of the verse is quite satisfactory, but the sense clearly is that in some way the natural order of things shall be reversed. The best interpretation is perhaps that it shall be the bride that shall court her husband, i.e. “instead of shyly keeping aloof or worse (as hitherto), Israel, Jehovah’s bride, shall with eager affection press around her divine husband” (Cheyne). Another explanation is that such is the Lord’s condescension towards Israel, that He will for her glory, allow the natural order to be reversed, and deign to accept protection (of His Temple, services, honour, etc.) at her hands. For this sense of cherishing, protecting, as belonging to the Hebrew verb of the clause, we may compare {{Deuteronomy 32:10, “He (the Lord) led him (Israel) about; he instructed him; he kept him as the apple of his eye”}}; and {{Psalm 32:10, “He that trusts in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about.”}} Some commentators, by a very slight change in the Hebrew vocalisation, obtain the rendering, “a woman shall be turned into a man,” i.e. shall be given the courage of a man, so that all fear and hesitation on her part may be at an end.]]

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{{Jeremiah 31:23 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Once again they will speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I restore their fortunes, ‘The LORD bless you, O abode of righteousness, O holy hill!’

Jeremiah 31:24 “And Judah and all its cities will dwell together in it, the farmer and they who go about with flocks

Jeremiah 31:25 for I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes.”

Jeremiah 31:26 At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me.}}

VERSES 23-26. These verses are about restoration and Israel again dwelling in its native land in the Lord’s fold with all His blessings upon them. The word of the Lord will be spoken again in the land. In the latter part of verse 23 I am not sure if it is the Lord or the restored people who speak this.

VERSE 24 reinforces the fact that God’s blessing pertains to the land concerning Israel and here there is harmony between all agricultural and pastoral industries.

Verse 25 is a great promise by God that He sustains the weary. In the Millennium among the Jews I don’t think they will know weariness or any of the adverse emotions that beset us here and now.

Verse 26 reveals that what had preceded this was a vision or dream and Jeremiah woke up in a wonderfully agreeable state. However there is a lot of doubt about this statement. The doubt is whether a real, physical sleep is meant, or merely an ecstatic condition resembling sleep. Many commentators take that line. Whatever the answer, the fact that Israel will be restored is so exhilarating and exciting, so much so, that it had an effect on Jeremiah.

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{{Jeremiah 31:27 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast,

Jeremiah 31:28 and it will come about that as I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to overthrow, to destroy, and to bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD.}}

VERSES 27-28. We have a prophecy that relates to the prosperity of Israel when she is restored. “Behold, days are coming,” is another variant of “In that day” or “At that time,” all of them reaching to the end of the Tribulation or the start of the Millennium and throughout that reign. Verse 27 means God will increase the numbers of both Jews and cattle and sheep. They will be productive. I am guessing there won’t be any unclean animals in Israel that will be kept and farmed in the 1000 year reign. Verse 28 speaks of a reversal of God’s actions – from destruction to edification. The Lord will care for His own people so lovingly and graciously.

{{Jeremiah 31:29 “In those days they will not say again, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,

Jeremiah 31:30 “but everyone will die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.”}}

VERSES 29-30. The children of the dispersed Samaritans, and the children born in captivity in Babylon all suffered because of the sins of their fathers and that passed on down through the descendants. In a pale similarity we all suffer because of the sin of Adam and Eve (though each is responsible for his and her own sins.) In the Millennial days it will no longer be said (that is, it won’t happen) that the fathers eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. That aspect will change. A man who does the wrong thing will suffer for that and there will be no effect on his children like it is now. I have to say I am a bit uncertain about the dying for his own iniquity of verse 30 as in the Millennium all restored, redeemed, converted Israel will be righteous before God. Other prophecies indicate that.