1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2“Thus said the LORD God of Israel, Write you these words that I have spoken to you on a scroll. 3For, look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah, said the LORD, and bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take hold of it.” 4And these are the words that the LORD spoke concerning Israel and concerning Judah. 5For thus said the LORD:
A voice of terror we have heard,
fear and not peace.
6Ask, pray, and see,
if a male is giving birth.
his hands on his loins like a woman in labor
and every face turned sickly green?
7Woe, for great is that day,
there is nothing like it,
and a time of distress for Jacob,
but from it he shall be rescued.
8“And it shall happen on that day, said the LORD of Armies, I will break his yoke from upon his neck, and his bands I will snap, and strangers shall no longer make him serve. 9But they shall serve the LORD their God and David their king whom I will raise up for them.
10As for you, do not fear, My servant Jacob,
—said the LORD—
and do not be afraid, O Israel,
for I am about to rescue you from afar
and your seed from the land of their captivity,
and Jacob again shall be at ease,
be tranquil, with none to make him tremble.
11For I am with you, said the LORD, to rescue you,
for I will make an end of all the nations
where I have scattered you.
But of you I will not make an end,
I will surely chastise you in justice,
I will surely not acquit you.
12For thus said the LORD:
grave is your blow.
13None considers your case for a cure,
no healing of the wound do you have.
14All your lovers have forgotten you,
you they do not seek.
For an enemy’s blow I struck you,
a ruthless punishment
for all your crimes,
your many offenses.
15Why should you cry out for your shattering,
your grievous pain,
for all your crimes, your many offenses?
I have done these to you.
16Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured,
and all your foes, they all shall go as captives,
and your plunderers shall become plunder,
And all your despoilers I will turn into spoil.
17For I will bring healing to you
and cure you of your blows, said the LORD,
though they called you “outcast,”
“Zion, whom no one seeks.”
18For thus said the LORD:
I am about to restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents
and show mercy to his dwellings,
and the city shall be rebuilt on its mound,
and the citadel sit in its rightful place.
19And a song of thanksgiving shall issue from them
and the sound of celebrants,
and I will make them multiply, they shall not dwindle,
give them honor, they shall not be paltry.
20And his sons shall be as before,
his community before Me firm-founded,
and I will reckon with all who oppress him.
21And his leader shall be from within him,
and his ruler shall come forth from his midst.
I will bring him close and he shall approach Me,
for who would presume to approach Me?
said the LORD.
22And you shall become My people;
as for Me, I will be your God.
23Look, the LORD’s storm goes forth in wrath,
a whirling tempest,
it comes down on the head of the wicked,
until He does and until He fulfills
His heart’s devisings.
In the days afterward you shall grasp it.
24At that time, said the LORD, I will be God for all the clans of Israel and they shall be My people.
CHAPTER 30 NOTES
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3. For, look, days are coming . . . when I will restore the fortunes of My people. These words, signaling a prophecy of national redemption after the destruction, are taken by many scholars to mark the beginning of a distinctive subunit in Jeremiah that scholarship labels the Book of Restoration.
restore the fortunes. More literally, “restore the former state.”
5. A voice of terror we have heard. After the summary prophecy of national restoration in verse 3, there is a switch to poetry, which serves as a vehicle to make vividly clear the great tribulation that is to precede the restoration.
6. Why do I see every man, / his hands on his loins like a woman in labor. The convulsions of childbirth are a standard trope in biblical poetry for shuddering and pain. In this instance, the familiar simile is represented through a startling image: males, who could not possibly be experiencing birth pangs, writhe in pain with their hands on their loins, their faces sickly green, as though they were in labor.
7. but from it he shall be rescued. Only in the last verse of the last line of the poem is the move from anguish to redemption announced.
8. from upon his neck. The Masoretic Text has “your neck,” but the Septuagint shows the third person—perhaps only an understandable regularization of the Hebrew by the Greek translators.
9. David their king. The ruler of the restored monarchy is to be a kind of new version of David, who is imagined to be the ideal king.
11. I will surely chastise you in justice, / I will surely not acquit you. These two verses are an explanatory qualification of the initial verset in this triadic line: Unlike My treatment of your oppressors, I will not entirely destroy you; however, I will first submit you to just chastisement, for I cannot ignore your crimes.
12. your shattering is grievous, / grave is your blow. These words follow from the reference to chastisement in the previous verse: the people is condemned to acute suffering (verses 12–15) before the redemption comes (verses 16–22).
13. healing of the wound. The first of the two Hebrew nouns here clearly means “healing”; the second is generally thought to refer to the scab that forms over a wound in the process of healing.
14. All your lovers. The probable reference is to the nations with whom Judah sought to create alliances.
an enemy’s blow. God struck the people a blow so hard that it is as if He were acting as an enemy.
16. Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured. This is the pivotal point of the prophecy. The logical force of “therefore” is that after you have suffered these terrible blows and thus paid for your crimes, your enemies will get their comeuppance and you will be restored to your former state.
18. and the city shall be rebuilt on its mound. The mound or tell (it has become a modern archaeological term) is the heap of soil and rubble where the city once stood, which is now to underpin the rebuilding of the city.
19. And a song of thanksgiving shall issue from them. This and the lines that follow mark a dramatic progression: first we see the inanimate structures of the city rising again; now we have the rebuilt city filled with joyful human beings, chanting songs of thanksgiving to the accompaniment of musical instruments (“the sound of celebrants”).
21. And his leader shall be from within him. Instead of foreign rulers, or rulers put in place by alien dominators, as in fact the Babylonians did, an authentic—presumably Davidic—king from the midst of the people will assume the throne.
for who would presume to approach Me. This is a recurring motif in a variety of biblical texts—that it is dangerous, often fatal, to approach God or His sanctuary uninvited. Here, however, God encourages the Judahite leader to approach.
23. Look, the LORD’s storm goes forth in wrath. This entire verse may be a fragment unconnected with what precedes or follows because the image of wrathful destruction scarcely accords with the prophecy of jubilant restoration just annunciated. It is conceivable that because the destruction is said to come down on “the head of the wicked,” it refers back to the devouring of the devourers in verse 16, but if that is so, the placement of these lines here looks odd.