1Thus said the LORD:
The people, survivors of the sword,
have found favor in the wilderness,
2From afar the LORD appeared to me:
With everlasting love do I love you,
therefore did I draw you in kindness.
3Yet will I rebuild you and you will be built,
O Virgin Israel,
Yet shall you deck yourself with your timbrels
and go out in the celebrants’ dance.
4Yet shall you plant vineyards on Samaria’s hills,
the planters shall plant and eat the fruit.
5For a day is to come when watchmen call out
on Mount Ephraim:
Rise and let us go up to Zion,
to the LORD our God.
6For thus said the LORD:
Sing out in joy for Jacob,
shout jubilant at the head of nations.
Proclaim, praise and say,
the LORD has rescued your people,
the remnant of Israel.
7I am about to bring them from the land of the north,
and I will gather them from the corners of the earth.
The blind and the lame are among them,
she with child and the woman in labor,
a great assembly shall come back here.
8In weeping shall they come,
in supplications will I lead them,
I will make them walk by brooks of water,
on a straight way where they shall not stumble,
For I am father to Israel,
And Ephraim is my firstborn.
9Listen to the word of the LORD, you nations,
and tell in the coastlands far off and say:
He who scattered Israel shall gather it
and guard it as a shepherd his flock.
10For the LORD has ransomed Jacob
and redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than he.
11And they shall come and sing gladly on Zion’s heights
and shall shine with the LORD’s bounty,
for the grain and the new wine and the oil,
and for the flocks and the cattle.
And their life-breath shall be like a watered garden,
and they shall no longer be in pain.
12Then shall the virgin rejoice in dance
and young men and elders together,
and I shall turn their mourning to gladness
and comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow.
13And I will wet the priests’ gullet with richness,
and My people shall be sated with My bounty
—said the LORD.
14Thus said the LORD:
lament and bitter weeping.
Rachel weeps for her sons
She refuses to be comforted
for her sons, for they are no more.
15Thus said the LORD:
Hold back your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your labor—said the LORD—
and they shall come back from the enemy’s land,
16and there is hope for your future—said the LORD—
and the sons shall come back to their place.
17I have surely heard
Ephraim rocking with grief:
You chastised me and I was chastised
like an untrained calf.
Bring me back, that I may come back,
for You are the LORD my God.
18For after I turned back I repented,
and after I became aware I struck my thigh.
I was ashamed, indeed, disgraced,
for I bore the reproach of my youth.
19Is not Ephraim a dear son to Me,
a delightful child?
For even as I speak against him,
I surely recall him.
Therefore does My heart stir for him,
I will surely show him mercy, said the LORD.
20Set yourself markers,
put up road signs for yourself,
pay heed to the highway,
the way where you walked,
Turn back, O Virgin Israel.
Turn back to these towns of yours.
21How long will you slip away,
rebellious daughter?
For the LORD has created a new thing on earth—
the female goes round the male.
22Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: “Yet shall they say this thing in the land of Judah and in its towns when I restore their fortunes: May the LORD bless you, righteous abode, holy mountain. 23And farmers and those journeying with the flock shall dwell in Judah and all its towns together. 24For I have given full drink to the thirsty gullet, and every being in pain I have sated.” 25For this have I awoken and seen, and my sleep had been sweet to me. 26“Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with human seed and seed of beast. 27And as I was zealous over them to uproot and smash and lay ruin and destroy and harm, so will I be zealous over them to build and to plant, said the LORD. 28In those days, they shall no longer say:
and the sons’ teeth were blunted.
29Instead, a man shall die through his own crime, and every person eating unripe fruit, his teeth shall be blunted. 30Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will seal with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant. 31Not like the covenant that I sealed with their fathers on the day I held their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, as they broke My covenant, though I was master to them, said the LORD. 32But this is the covenant that I shall seal with the house of Israel after those days, said the LORD: I have put My teaching in their midst, and on their heart I have inscribed it, and I will be their God and they shall be My people. 33And they shall no longer teach each to his fellow man and each to his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD.’ For they shall all know Me from the least of them to their greatest, said the LORD, for I will forgive their crime, and their offense I will no more recall.”
34For thus said the LORD,
Who makes the sun for light by day,
for light by night,
roiling the sea, and its waves do roar
—the LORD of Armies is His name.
35Should these laws be set aside
from before Me? said the LORD.
Then Israel’s seed would cease
to be a nation before Me forever.
36Thus said the LORD:
Should the heavens be measured above
and the earth’s foundations fathomed below,
only then would I reject all Israel’s seed
for all that they did, said the LORD.
37Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when a city for the LORD shall be built from Hananel Tower to the Corner Gate. 38And the measuring line shall again go out before it to the Hill of Gareb and swing down to Goah. 39And all the Valley of Corpses and the Ashes and all the fields to the Kidron Wadi, to the corner of the Horse Gate, shall be holy to the LORD. It shall not again be uprooted and shall not be destroyed for all time.
CHAPTER 31 NOTES
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1. The people, survivors of the sword, / have found favor in the wilderness. For the sake of English coherence, the translation reverses the order of the two Hebrew versets.
Israel going to find rest. Throughout this prophecy, the meaning of the term “Israel” that is used has been debated by scholars. Some understand it in its traditional sense as a name for the northern kingdom. While that is possible, it may not be likely that Jeremiah, writing well over a century after the destruction of the northern kingdom, was still hoping for a return of the exiled ten tribes. By this point, then, “Israel” may have become an interchangeable term with “Judah,” and meaning “Judah.”
2. therefore did I draw you in kindness. The verb here is probably dictated by an image of God’s leading the people through the wilderness on the way back from exile. The noun ḥesed, which can also mean something like “loyalty,” is better rendered here as “kindness” (or perhaps even “tenderness”) because of the affirmation of love in the parallel verset.
3. Yet shall you deck yourself with your timbrels. The timbrel, played by the young women as they danced in celebration, is of course not exactly an ornament, but held by the hip of the dancer, it is imagined as ornamenting her in her dance.
7. The blind and the lame are among them, / she with child and the woman in labor. The return from exile will be so comprehensive that even those barely capable of walking—the blind and the lame, the pregnant and the parturient—will join “the great assembly.” It is noteworthy that between these two versets there is a move from physical impairment to bringing life into the world, which is thus a kind of miniature intimation of the whole process of national restoration.
8. In weeping shall they come, / in supplications will I lead them. Both versets refer unambiguously to return, not to going out from Zion. An argument to understand the term rendered as “supplications” to mean “compassion” rests on shaky grounds. The probable meaning, in keeping with the interpretation of several medieval exegetes, is that as the people returns, it weeps and implores God to forgive it for its previous misdeeds.
I will make them walk by brooks of water. The terrain that the people must cross in their long trek from exile in the east is largely parched desert, so leading them along watercourses is a necessary part of the redemption. Second Isaiah will pick up this motif.
11. their life-breath. The tricky Hebrew noun is the multivalent nefesh. It does not mean “soul,” as many translators continue to render it. The core meaning is “life-breath” and, by extension, “life,” but the latter would be misleading here because it could suggest “a lived life.” Nefesh also often implies “essential self.” It sometimes means “throat” or “gullet” (by metonymy because the throat is a passageway for the breath), and that is the probable sense in verse 13, where the satisfaction of appetite is invoked.
12. the virgin . . . / young men. This is a fixed pair in biblical poetry, often associated with joyfulness. She is referred to as a virgin simply on the assumption that young women as yet unmarried would preserve their virginity, though nothing is really made of the abstention from sexual intercourse.
14. A voice in Ramah is heard. Ramah is a site just north of Jerusalem associated with Rachel, but it means “height,” and so it is also possible to render this as “on the height.”
for they are no more. The Hebrew shows a singular, dictated by a pointed allusion to “is no more” referring to Rachel’s son Joseph, a word first uttered by the ten brothers to the man they see as the vizier of Egypt, then by their father, who laments that “Joseph is no more” and “Simeon is no more.” He is wrong in both cases, which here provides an intimation that the sons for whom Rachel weeps will return.
15. said the LORD. It should be kept in mind that this formula for assigning speech is often extrametrical in poetry and sometimes may reflect an editorial intervention.
16. their place. The literal sense is “their border,” which often, by metonymy, means “territory.”
18. I struck my thigh. This is obviously a gesture of grief or regret.
19. does My heart stir for him. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “innards” or “bowels,” imagined as the seat of compassion.
20. road signs. The Hebrew tamrurim, of uncertain etymology, appears only here, and thus the meaning is surmised from the poetic parallelism.
21. the female goes round the male. This is the literal sense of the Hebrew, and the claim of some scholars that the verb here means “protect” is dubious. Following the castigation of the young woman as a “rebellious daughter” who “slips away,” the clause might be sarcastic: it is the way of the world for the male to court the female, but in this case of the wayward daughter the roles are scandalously reversed.
24. I have given full drink to the thirsty gullet. This appears to be still another instance in which nefesh refers to “gullet” or “throat.” The verb here, which suggests “watering” or “providing abundant drink” is the same one attached to the garden in verse 11 and to the priests’ gullet in verse 13.
every being in pain. This is again nefesh, and the translation guesses that here it means “being” or “self,” although it could again mean “gullet.”
25. For this have I awoken and seen. These words are probably the prophet’s, not God’s, especially because the deity is said neither to slumber nor to sleep.
and my sleep had been sweet to me. The prophet evidently has enjoyed a pleasing dream of national restoration, and now he awakes to find that it is true.
26. I will sow the house of Israel. This may seem like a mixed metaphor, but “house of” as a term for “people of” or “kingdom of” is so formulaic that no suggestion of a built structure is conveyed.
28. The fathers ate unripe fruit / and the sons’ teeth were blunted. This is obviously a proverbial saying with the sense: if the fathers behave badly, their offspring will suffer. In the future, Jeremiah promises, this will no longer be true. Most translations render the first Hebrew noun, boser, as “sour grapes,” but with little warrant. In fact, it is eating unripe fruit, which is still hard, that blunts the teeth, something unripe grapes would not do. The time-honored translation of the verb in the second verset is “set on edge,” but it actually means to “become blunt.”
30. a new covenant. This Hebrew phrase, brit ḥadashah, famously became the designation for the Christian Scriptures (“New Testament”). What it refers to in Jeremiah’s prophecy is a new covenant between God and Israel, to be fully internalized (“inscribed” on the heart), that will replace the covenant violated by Israel.
33. For they shall all know Me. In the coming era of the new covenant, every person in Israel will be inwardly informed of what God expects, and no teachers or external force will be required.
34. the laws of moon and stars. The world is created with set guiding principles, “statutes” or “laws,” ḥuquot—the cycle of day and night (there is a reminiscence of Genesis 1:14–15), the movement of the tides. The universe is orderly, and just as its laws are immutable, God’s commitment to the continuation of Israel will never waver (verse 35).
36. for all that they did. Israel has compiled a long bill of offenses, and for this they have suffered a national disaster, but whatever their crimes, God remains steadfast in sustaining their existence as a nation.
37. from Hananel Tower to the Corner Gate. These and the places mentioned in the next two verses are markers of the perimeter of Jerusalem, thus conveying to the audience of the prophecy a concretely defined sense of the dimensions of the city that is now to be rebuilt and never again to be destroyed.