WWUTT 2509 Rachel Weeping for Her Children (Jeremiah 31:10-20)

Israel had rebelled against God, and what they deserved for that was destruction. But God had promised He would not destroy, but restore them. And that promise of restoration is given to us as well when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

The Book of Consolation and the Promise of Restoration

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we come back to chapter 31. This chapter is most famous for the promise of the new covenant that God gives to Israel, which the book of Hebrews says is fulfilled in Christ.

So all who are in Christ Jesus, who have put their faith and trust in Him, are in that new covenant, which isn't talked about until verse 31. So we won't get that far today, but you will hear another passage that might be familiar.

To you.

So let me start where we left off last time. I got through verse 9. I'll start reading in verse 10 and go through verse 17. Hear the word of the Lord, which happens to be the very first phrase that we read here.

Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away. Say, He who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his.

Flock.

For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd.

Their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy.

I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow. I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, declares the Lord. 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. Thus says the Lord, keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.

There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country. Did you hear the familiar verse in there? It was verse 15, a voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children because they are no more. That is from Matthew chapter two, where we read of Herod slaughtering the children in an attempt to try to kill the Christ child. I'll mention that again as we come to that.

But first let's go back up to verse 10. Let me remind you that this is part of what is called the book of consolation. So this is a book within a book. You have the book of Jeremiah chapters 30 through 33 are what God told Jeremiah to write down in a book, which was a consolation for Israel.

We've read of many prophecies of judgment and exile all the way up to chapter 30. And then the message shifts to a message of hope and restoration for Israel. So we started that in chapter 30. We're reading more of that here in chapter 31 as part of this book of consolation.

And it is, of course, in the middle of this book that we will read of the new covenant later on in this particular chapter. So this is sectioned out. I haven't really been reading it according to the sections, but the first section is verses one through 14.

And we're still in that as I pick up today in verse 10. So God promises Israel that they will be his people. That's the theme of verses one through 14. I will be their father and they will be my children.

I am a father to Israel and Ephraim is my firstborn is what we last read in verse nine. The second part then picks up on verse 15 and goes through verse 26. And it talks about how God will have mercy on weary Israel.

Then he will make Israel secure. That's verses 27 to 30. And then, of course, the new covenant section in verses 31 to 40. So back to verse 10, where it is said, hear the word of the Lord. And by the way, that phrase itself, you've heard me say it many times if you've listened to this program, but that phrase is most heard or most read, I guess you would say, in the book of Jeremiah.

We have that phrase, hear the word of the Lord, God saying things to Jeremiah, which he proclaims to the people in his name. Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away.

This is a message that is for even beyond God's people, Israel. He who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock. That's the rest of verse 10. So why is that being said to the nations?

Because that's where Israel has been sent out into. Israel has been scattered into all the nations. So nations give up Israel, that they may come back to this place and inhabit the land once again that God had given to the descendants of Abraham.

Verse 11, for the Lord has ransomed Jacob and he has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. I had mentioned previously that this is really an amazing, incredible prophecy that said here in the book of Jeremiah.

Not just are the people of God being told that they will come out of exile, but they will even re-inhabit the land that God had driven them from. And so it was done. So it's really quite a remarkable prophecy that we read here.

And it's even being spoken to the other nations that they would give up Israel to be able to come back. Israel had no ability on their own. They weren't even a great enough or large enough number of people to fight back against those who had taken them into exile.

So they did nothing to free themselves. This could only be by the hand of God. The Lord has ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from hands that are too strong for him. You know, it is said in the New Testament of us who are followers of Christ Jesus that we are redeemed.

We have been redeemed from sin, the wages of sin, which is death. And we've been saved from the wrath of God, which all of us deserve because of our sin against God. We have been redeemed from this. We've been bought and paid for.

And the price that we owed because of our sin against God has been taken care of by Christ, by his death on the cross and even his resurrection from the grave. As said in Romans 4 25, he was raised for our justification as well.

So all who are in Christ Jesus, God has redeemed us from hands too strong for us. We couldn't save ourselves from sin and death or even from the wrath of God. But God has done this by his mercy. So this is even types and shadows about the salvation that we would eventually receive by putting our trust in Jesus Christ.

So as God had done this for Jacob, for Israel, so he has done it for us. Verse 12, they shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine and the oil and over the young of the flock and the herd.

Their life shall be like a watered garden and they shall languish no more. Typology that points even to the church that today we do not languish anymore. We do not perish in our sin or under the judgment of God, but we have been well watered, are enjoying the fruit of the vine, the wine that symbolizes abundance.

Jesus said in John 10, 10, I have come that they may have life more abundantly. And that is what we have by faith in him. Verse 13, then shall the young women rejoice in the dance and the young men and the old shall be Mary.

I will turn their morning into joy. I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow. Don't you think that you have received that? In Christ Jesus, that you have gladness now where previously in your sin or in the meaninglessness of life that you were just walking through, trudging through, wondering what the purpose was or when you could get your next fix on the passions of your flesh.

God has rescued you out of that, that even, even all of that was, was very sorrowful. It was never fulfilling. It was empty. But in Christ, our morning has been turned into joy. We have gladness instead of sorrow.

Verse 14, I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness declares the Lord. The priests will receive abundance that they may minister on behalf of the people and everyone is blessed.

Everyone will be satisfied with my goodness. You know, even now when pastors shepherd for the flock of God, when a pastor leads the people of God, the church that he has been entrusted with, he is serving as a priest in that role.

Now we are, we don't have specific priesthoods. We don't have a priest, we don't identify him as a priest anyway, because our high priest is Christ. And the fact of the matter is that everyone in the church is part of a priesthood.

That said in 1 Peter 2, 9, you are a chosen race, a holy people, a royal priesthood. So all of us who are in Christ Jesus are a priesthood, therefore we don't have priests per se. But when you think of what the pastor does for the people, it is for their benefit and to their joy.

As is said in Hebrews 13, 17, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls. They're shepherding over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you.

So it is good to have these men who shepherd our souls. I'm a pastor, but even I have pastors who shepherd me. I'm part of a plurality eldership. So Pastor Chris, Pastor Alan are likewise my shepherds and help to shepherd me also.

And it is my joy and my delight to submit to their counsel as we shepherd one another in addition to the people of God that we, that we shepherd in his church. So this is, this is a comfort to the people.

It is gladness and not sorrow. Verse 14, I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance. And when the priests are filled with abundance, then the people are satisfied with the goodness of God. When a pastor knows God's word and delights to teach it and fills the people up with the promises of God that we find in the Bible.

It is a delight to the priest and to all those who would be taught by him. But then we have this interesting spot in verse 15. That's quite different in tone from what we just read in verse 14. As I mentioned, that's that first portion versus one through 14 is the first section of this chapter where God is promising his people Israel that they will be his people.

But then here in this next part, starting at verse 15, this is where God is showing that he will have mercy on Israel. But to have mercy on Israel, it is first shown to us what they have lost. So in verse 15, thus says the Lord, a voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children. So we've had previously where it is said that God had ransomed or redeemed Jacob. And who was Jacob's favorite wife? His favorite wife was Rachel. She was also the mother of Joseph and Benjamin.

So Rachel is weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more. And as I mentioned, this is the verse that is cited in Matthew chapter two after Herod slaughters the children in search of the Christ child.

So having ascertained from the wise men about the time that Jesus would have been born, Herod issues this decree that all of the children in Bethlehem and in the surrounding communities should be killed.

Those boys that were two years old and under, those were the ones that Herod was looking.

For.

And if he could get all of those boys, then Jesus would be one of them. So because of that slaughter, something that we remember or refer to as the massacre of the innocents, that was in fulfillment, Matthew says, of this particular verse.

It's not just about the punishment that came on Israel when Babylon came against them, when the Assyrians came against them. But even this was pointing towards some future fulfillment. As much as the angel said on that first silent night, peace on earth, goodwill towards men, there was not a whole lot of peace on earth.

The angels meant that in the sense of all who believe in Jesus will have peace with God. But in the meantime, earth, which was under a curse, would remain in chaos so that even when Jesus was born and fleeing from the wrath of Herod, there were children that suffered at the hands of this tyrant.

Christ will one day put all of this to an end, all the violence and the murder and the suffering, the anguish, everything that we see going on around us that we know of this world to be. We suffer in this world and it is the lot of every person.

Eventually, everyone's going to suffer because everyone dies. And yet Christ will put an end to all of this and deliver us out of this world into his perfect, imperishable kingdom. There is an anticipation of a savior here, even where God is promising comfort to his children.

But Rachel weeps for hers because they are no more. Yet God will show mercy to them. Verse 16, thus says the Lord, keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears for there is a reward for your work, declares the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.

Now, remember when Mary and Joseph were fleeing from the hand of Herod, they went where they went to Egypt, specifically to the Jewish settlement at Alexandria. That was where they ended up. And Jesus would come out of Egypt in fulfillment of Hosea 11, one out of Egypt.

I have called my son. And so that is even in fulfillment of this statement here in verse 16, they shall come back from the land of the enemy. Jesus would come out of the land of the enemy. And all of us who are in Christ Jesus will also come out of the land of the enemy.

Verse 17, there is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country. This, of course, was fulfilled when Israel, when the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile into the land, rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, rebuilt the temple.

Discipline, Adoption, and Restoration in Christ

Verse 18, I have heard Ephraim grieving. You have disciplined me and I was disciplined like an untrained calf. Bring me back that I may be restored for you are the Lord my God. These are the words that Ephraim calls out to the Lord.

You have disciplined me. I received that discipline, but now bring me back. For after I had turned away, I relented. This is still Ephraim talking. And after I was instructed, I struck my thigh. I was ashamed and I was confounded because I bore the disgrace of my youth.

Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore, my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord. And you see these statements about Israel, Jacob, Judah, Ephraim being spoken about as children of God.

And likewise, we are also the children of the Lord. All of us who believe in Christ have been adopted into the family of God. And God will chastise us when we go wrong. When we have sinned, he will rebuke us.

Our hearts will be convicted. We will turn from our sin to the Lord Christ and all of this, a work he does for us in our sanctification that we may be purified before the day of glory. Hebrews 12 says that if God did not discipline us, then we would be illegitimate sons.

We would not be the children of God. So the fact that you are convicted over sin and you turn from your sin back to the Lord, this is all evidence to you that you are a child of God and he loves you enough to discipline you that you may not fall into judgment that but that you will be purified and ready for the day of glory.

This is God preparing his people before he brings them out of exile back into the land, giving them these promises. And these promises are also for us, my friends, these promises are fulfilled in Christ Jesus and the land that we will inherit won't be a land plot on earth, but something much better, the heavenly kingdom of God that are promised to all who are in Christ.

So turn from your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and live. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we have read. Always good to get these reminders of your promises to us. Help us to live in those promises that we would live in the righteousness that you have called us to and clothed us in, in Christ Jesus.

It's in his name we pray.

Amen.

This has been when we understand the text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and let your friends know about our ministry.

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