1And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah again while he was still shut up in the court of the guard, saying, 2“Thus said the LORD, Who fashions it to bring it about, the LORD is His name. 3Call out to Me that I may answer you and tell you great and lofty things you did not know. 4For thus said the LORD God of Israel concerning the houses of the city and the houses of the kings of Judah torn down before the siege-ramps and before the sword, 5those coming to do battle with the Chaldeans, but to fill them with human corpses whom I struck down in My wrath and in My anger as I hid My face from this city for all their evil. 6I am about to grant them a cure and a healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them a wealth of true peace. 7And I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and rebuild them as before. 8And I will cleanse them of their crimes with which they offended against Me and with which they rebelled against Me. 9And it shall become for Me a joyous name, praise and glory, to all nations of the earth, who shall hear of all the good that I do for them. They shall fear and tremble over all the good and all the peace that I do for them. 10Thus said the LORD: Again shall be heard in this place of which you say, it is in ruins, without humans and without beasts, in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without humans and without beasts—11the voice of gladness and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, saying ‘Give thanks to the LORD of Armies, for the LORD is good, for His kindness is everlasting,’ as they bring a thanksgiving offering to the house of the LORD, for I will restore the fortunes of the land as before, said the LORD. 12Thus said the LORD of Armies: Again shall there be in this ruined place without humans and beasts as well and in all its towns a pasture for shepherds resting their flocks. 13In the towns of the hill country, in the towns of the lowland and in the towns of the Negeb and in the region of Benjamin and in the environs of Jerusalem, again shall the flocks pass under the hands of him who counts them, said the LORD. 14Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will fulfill the good word that I spoke concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15In those days and at that time I will make a righteous shoot flourish for David, and he shall do justice and righteousness in the land. 16In those days Judah shall be rescued and Jerusalem shall dwell secure, and this is what it shall be called: The-LORD-Is-Our-Righteousness. 17For thus said the LORD: no man of David seated on the throne of the house of Israel shall be cut off. 18And of the levitical priests no man shall be cut off for all time from before Me who offers up burnt offering and who burns grain offering and performs sacrifice.” 19And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 20“Thus said the LORD: Should you break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, that day and night come not in their time, 21only then would My covenant with David My servant be broken, that he have a son reigning on his throne, and the levitical priests, My ministrants. 22As the array of the heavens cannot be counted nor the sand of the sea, so will I multiply the seed of David My servant and the Levites who minister to Me.” 23And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying: 24“Have you not seen what this people has spoken, saying, ‘The two clans that the LORD chose He has rejected.’ My people they have spurned from being again a nation before them. 25Thus said the LORD: As I have surely set out My covenant with day and night, the laws of the heavens and the earth, 26so will I not reject the seed of Jacob and David My servant to take rulers from his seed, from the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for I will restore their fortunes and show them mercy.”
CHAPTER 33 NOTES
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2. Who fashions it to bring it about. The feminine pronominal object of both verbs refers to the plan or design in history that God is about to bring to fulfillment.
3. lofty. The Hebrew betsurot usually means “fortified,” but by extension it could suggest “looming high,” and there is no need to emend it to the more predictable netsurot, “hidden.”
4. torn down before the siege-ramps. The probable reference is to a strategy of razing houses in close proximity to the city walls, either to prevent their being set on fire from the siege-ramps above them or to allow the defenders more room to maneuver. It is doubtful that the palace would have been close to the wall, so “the houses of the kings of Judah” would be royal properties beyond the palace.
5. but to fill them with human corpses. The strategy of razing the houses is doomed to failure, and the cleared space merely becomes a killing ground.
6. true peace. The Hebrew reads “peace and truth,” a phrase understood in this translation as a hendiadys.
9. And it shall become for Me. The implied subject of the feminine verb is the nation.
11. the voice of gladness and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. The words of this evocation of joy in the land after its devastation would be incorporated in the traditional Jewish marriage ceremony.
for the LORD is good, for His kindness is everlasting. These words echo a recurrent formula in Psalms. This is especially appropriate because the jubilant Judahites are then said to be bringing a thanksgiving offering to the Temple (which will be rebuilt after its destruction).
13. again shall the flocks pass under the hands of him who counts them. This is a practice invoked both in biblical narrative and in biblical poetry: an important responsibility of the shepherd is to count his sheep in order to make sure that none is missing. Should the count not be full, he is obliged to search for the missing sheep.
15. I will make a righteous shoot flourish for David. This picks up a prominent theme from Isaiah, that in the grand national restoration to come, an ideal king from the Davidic line will arise who will bring about a reign of perfect justice.
16. The-LORD-Is-Our-Righteousness. The idea of assigning epithets or names to Jerusalem that express its new status of rightness with God will be abundantly deployed in Second Isaiah.
17. no man of David seated on the throne of the house of Israel shall be cut off. At this historical moment, when the kingdom of Judah is about to be destroyed, Jeremiah provides an urgent emphasis that the divinely elected line will continue for all time. At least in this context, “Israel” is clearly interchangeable with “Judah” and cannot refer to the lost northern kingdom.
18. And of the levitical priests no man shall be cut off. The Temple priesthood and the Davidic monarchy are a single package—as the reform of Josiah around 622 B.C.E. stressed—and hence the continuity of both is guaranteed.
20. Should you break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night. The rhetorical argument is made through a pointed extension of the term “covenant.” As a rule, a covenant is a pact agreed upon between two conscious parties. Here, however, the fixed laws of nature—implicitly, fixed by God—whereby night follows day in an unvarying order are represented as a “covenant.” Only if this covenant could be broken would the covenant between God and David, God and priesthood, be abrogated.
24. The two clans that the LORD chose He has rejected. The Hebrew mishpaḥot, “clans” or “families,” is given an extended sense here to refer to the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. One has already been destroyed and the other is on the brink of destruction: hence, the judgment that God has rejected both. It is not immediately clear who “this people” is that makes such a judgment. The second part of the verse, “My people they have spurned from being again a nation before them,” suggests that it is a foreign people that imagines that Israel will never again have a place among the nations.
25. the laws of the heavens and the earth. “Laws” is now added to “covenant,” making clear that the laws of nature constitute an eternal pact between God and creation. It is characteristic of the biblical conception of nature that its laws or regulating principles are imagined not as intrinsic to it or automatic but divinely ordained.