7 Ha! for that day is so great that there is no day like it: it is the time of Jacob's trouble: but he will get salvation from it.
The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and coming very quickly; the bitter day of the Lord is near, coming on more quickly than a man of war. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and sorrow, a day of wasting and destruction, a day of dark night and deep shade, a day of cloud and thick dark. A day of sounding the horn and the war-cry against the walled towns and the high towers. And I will send trouble on men so that they will go about like the blind, because they have done evil against the Lord: and their blood will be drained out like dust, and their strength like waste. Even their silver and their gold will not be able to keep them safe in the day of the Lord's wrath; but all the land will be burned up in the fire of his bitter wrath: for he will put an end, even suddenly, to all who are living in the land.
Because in those days there will be great sorrow, such as there has not been from the start of the world till now, or ever will be. And if those days had not been made short there would have been no salvation for any, but because of the saints those days will be made short.
See, a day of the Lord is coming when they will make division of your goods taken by force before your eyes. For I will get all the nations together to make war against Jerusalem; and the town will be overcome, and the goods taken from the houses, and the women taken by force: and half the town will go away as prisoners, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the town.
Sorrow to you who are looking for the day of the Lord! what is the day of the Lord to you? it is dark and not light. As if a man, running away from a lion, came face to face with a bear; or went into the house and put his hand on the wall and got a bite from a snake. Will not the day of the Lord be dark and not light? even very dark, with no light shining in it?
Ephraim's food is the wind, and he goes after the east wind: deceit and destruction are increasing day by day; they make an agreement with Assyria, and take oil into Egypt. The Lord has a cause against Judah, and will give punishment to Jacob for his ways; he will give him the reward of his acts. In the body of his mother he took his brother by the foot, and in his strength he was fighting with God;
An end has come, the end has come; see, it is coming on you. The crowning time has come on you, O people of the land: the time has come, the day is near; the day will not be slow in coming, it will not keep back. Now, in a little time, I will let loose my passion on you, and give full effect to my wrath against you, judging you for your ways, and sending punishment on you for all your disgusting works. My eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity: I will send on you the punishment of your ways, and your disgusting works will be among you; and you will see that I am the Lord who gives punishment. See, the day; see, it is coming: the crowning time has gone out; the twisted way is flowering, pride has put out buds. Violent behaviour has been lifted up into a rod of evil; it will not be slow in coming, it will not keep back. The time has come, the day is near: let not him who gives a price for goods be glad, or him who gets the price have sorrow:
This is what the Lord of armies has said: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are crushed down together: all those who took them prisoner keep them in a tight grip; they will not let them go. Their saviour is strong; the Lord of armies is his name: he will certainly take up their cause, so that he may give rest to the earth and trouble to the people of Babylon.
So this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, I will send punishment on the king of Babylon and on his land, as I have given punishment to the king of Assyria. And I will make Israel come back to his resting-place, and he will get his food on Carmel and Bashan, and have his desire in full measure on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead. In those days and in that time, says the Lord, when the evil-doing of Israel is looked for, there will be nothing; and in Judah no sins will be seen: for I will have forgiveness for those whom I will keep safe.
For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will again make Israel his special people, and will put them in their land; and the man from a strange country will take his place among them and be joined to the family of Jacob. And the people will take them with them to their place: and the children of Israel will give them a heritage in the Lord's land as men-servants and women-servants, making them prisoners whose prisoners they were; and they will be rulers over their masters.
For the day of the Lord of armies is coming on all the pride of men, and on all who are high and lifted up; And on all the high trees of Lebanon, and on all the strong trees of Bashan; And on all the high mountains, and on all the hills which are lifted up; And on every high tower, and on every strong wall; And on all the ships of Tarshish, and on all the fair boats. And the high looks of man will be put to shame, and the pride of men will be made low: and only the Lord will be lifted up in that day. And the images will never be seen again. And men will go into cracks of the rocks, and into holes of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and before the glory of his power, when he comes out of his place, shaking the earth with his strength. In that day men will put their images of silver and of gold, which they made for worship, in the keeping of the beasts of the dark places; To take cover in the cracks of the rocks, and in the holes of the hills, for fear of the Lord, and before the glory of his power, when he comes out of his place, shaking the earth with his strength. Have no more to do with man, whose life is only a breath, for he is of no value.
Then Jacob was by himself; and a man was fighting with him till dawn. But when the man saw that he was not able to overcome Jacob, he gave him a blow in the hollow part of his leg, so that his leg was damaged. And he said to him, Let me go now, for the dawn is near. But Jacob said, I will not let you go till you have given me your blessing. Then he said, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel: for in your fight with God and with men you have overcome. Then Jacob said, What is your name? And he said, What is my name to you? Then he gave him a blessing. And Jacob gave that place the name of Peniel, saying, I have seen God face to face, and still I am living.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 30
Commentary on Jeremiah 30 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
B. The Announcement of Deliverance for All Israel - Jeremiah 30-33
In view of the impending fall of the kingdom of Judah, Jeremiah seeks to present the godly with a strong anchor of hope in the realization of God's gracious promises, which were to be fulfilled after the appointed season of punishment had passed. For this purpose, after predicting the ills of exile times, the prophet gives a comprehensive statement concerning the deliverance which the Lord will vouchsafe to His people in the future, and gathers together the repeated briefer promises regarding the restoration and glorious condition of Israel and Judah, so as to give a full description of the deliverance intended for all the covenant people under the sceptre of the future David. This detailed announcement of the deliverance consists of a pretty long prophetic address (which Hengstenberg very properly designates "the triumphal hymn of Israel's salvation," Jer 30 and 31), and two pieces confirmatory of this address, viz.: (1) one recording a symbolical act performed by the prophet at God's command - the sale of a piece of hereditary property in land during the last siege of Jerusalem, shortly before the breaking up of the kingdom, which commenced with the taking of the city - together with a message from God explaining this act, Jer 32; and (2) another passage giving, in prophetic language, a renewed promise that Jerusalem and Judah would be restored with the blissful arrangements connected with the Davidic monarchy and the Levitical priesthood, Jer 33. According to the headings given in Jeremiah 32:1 and Jeremiah 33:1, these two latter pieces belong to the tenth year of Zedekiah's reign; the address contained in Jer 30 and 31, on the other hand, belongs to a somewhat earlier period, and was not uttered publicly before the people, but simply composed in writing, and meant to be preserved for future use. As regards the exact time of its composition, the views of modern expositors are very dissimilar. While Hengstenberg, with many others, places it in the same period with the allied chapters 32 and 33, viz., in the time when Jerusalem was being besieged, immediately before the capture and destruction of the city, Nהgelsbach reckons this address among the oldest portions of the whole book, and assigns its composition to the times of King Josiah, to which Jeremiah 3:11-25 belongs. But the arguments adduced in support of this view are quite insufficient to establish it. It does not by any means follow from the substantial agreement of the address with that in Jer 3, so far as it exists, that they were both composed at the same time; and if (as Nהgelsbach thinks) the fact that there is no mention made of the Chaldeans were taken as a criterion of composition before the fourth year of Jehoiakim, then, too, would the address in Jer 33 be put down as having been composed before that year, but in glaring contradiction to the inscription given Jeremiah 33:1. And as little reason is there for inferring, with Hengstenberg, from Jeremiah 30:5-7, that the final catastrophe of Jeremiah's time is represented as still imminent; for these verses do not refer at all to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. That learned writer is, however, quite correct in his remark, that the prophet takes his stand-point within the period of the catastrophe, as if it had already begun, but that this time is an ideal present, so that we must not allow ourselves to be deceived as to the time of composition by the circumstance that, generally, Judah no less than Israel appears to be already in a state of exile, far from the land of the Lord. The time of composition cannot be made out with perfect certainty. Yet there is nothing against the assumption that it is the tenth year of Zedekiah.
Israel's Deliverance and Glorious Condition in the Future - Jeremiah 30-31
A great day of judgment, before which all the world trembles, will bring to Israel deliverance from the yoke imposed on them. The Lord will bring them out of the land of their captivity (Jeremiah 30:4-11). He will bind up and heal the wounds which He inflicted on them because of their sins; will render to those who oppressed and chastised them according to their deeds (Jeremiah 30:12-17); will again build up His kingdom, and render His people glorious, both in temporal and spiritual respects (Jeremiah 30:18-22). The wrath of the Lord will be poured forth upon all evil-doers like a tempest, till He has performed the thoughts of His heart at the end of the days (Jeremiah 30:23, Jeremiah 30:24). At that time the Lord will become the God of all the families of Israel, and show them favour as His own people (Jeremiah 31:1-6); He will also gather the remnant of Israel out of the land of the north, lead them back into their inheritance, and make them glad and prosperous through His blessing (Jeremiah 31:7-14); the sorrow of Ephraim will He change to joy, and He will perform a new thing in the land (Jeremiah 31:15-22). In like manner will He restore Judah, and make want to cease (Jeremiah 31:23-26). Israel and Judah shall be raised to new life (Jeremiah 31:27-30), and a new covenant will be made with them, for the Lord will write His law in their heart and forgive their sins (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Israel shall for ever remain the people of God, and Jerusalem be built anew to the honour of the Lord, and, as a holy city, shall no more be laid waste for ever (Jeremiah 31:35-40).
This address forms a united whole which divides into two halves. In Jer 30:4-22 it is the deliverance of Israel in general that is set forth; while in the passage from Jeremiah 30:23 on to the end of Jer 31 it is deliverance, more especially in reference to Israel and Judah, that is portrayed. As there is no doubt about its unity, so neither is there any well-founded doubt regarding its genuineness and integrity. Hence the assertion of Hitzig, that, as a whole, it exhibits such a want of connection, such constant alternation of view-point, so many repetitions, and such irregularity in the structure of the verses, that there seems good ground for suspecting interpolation - such an assertion only shows the inability of the expositor to put himself into the course of thought in the prophetic word, to grasp its contents properly, and to give a fair and unprejudiced estimate of the whole. Hitzig would reject Jeremiah 31:38-40, and Nהgelsbach Jeremiah 30:20-24, as later additions, but in neither case is this admissible; and Kueper ( Jeremias , p. 170ff.) and Graf, in his Commentary, have already so well shown with what little reason Movers and Hitzig have supposed they had discovered so many "interpolations," that, in our exposition, we merely intend to take up in detail some of the chief passages.
Introduction, and Statement of the Subject - Jeremiah 30:1. "The word which came to Jeremiah from Jahveh, saying: Jeremiah 30:2 . Thus hath Jahveh the God of Israel said: Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book; Jeremiah 30:3 . For, behold, days come, saith Jahveh, when I shall turn the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith Jahve, and I shall bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it."