WWUTT 2514 Return, O Virgin Israel (Jeremiah 31:21-30)

God’s Promise to Restore Israel to the Land

God promised that he would restore Judah back to the land from which they were driven, because of their sin, because they had worshipped false gods. But it would not be the same. God was actually doing a new thing for them, and for us, 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.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we come back to chapter 31, this chapter most famous for the promise of the New Covenant, which the book of Hebrews says is fulfilled in Christ.

If we are in Christ Jesus, we are in that New Covenant. But we're not going to get to the New Covenant section today. That will actually be next week. That starts in verse 31 and goes to the end of the chapter.

Today we're looking at verses 21 to 30. Now where we left off, this is a section where God has promised mercy on Israel, who is weary from their exile. They had disobeyed God. They had worshipped false gods.

The Lord punished them by exiling them into the hands of the Babylonians. So God has promised he will have mercy on them. That's the section we're in right now, when it goes through verse 26. And then he also promises that he will make Israel secure.

That is verses 27 to 30. And in this, we also find promises for us. Obviously, since we're getting closer to the promise of the New Covenant, and that's the covenant that we are in, in Christ. So even these promises to Israel have some application for us.

Let me begin by reading verse 21 to 30. Hear the word of the Lord. A woman encircles a man. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Once more they shall use these words in the land of Judah and in its cities when I restore their fortunes.

The Lord bless you, O habitation of righteousness, O holy hill. And Judah and all its cities shall dwell there together, and the farmers and those who wander with their flocks. For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.

At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast.

And it shall come to pass that as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring harm, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, declares the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Which is an interesting idiom, but I will explain that when we get there. So let's come back to verse 21.

Returning by the Way They Came

Now reminding you again that in this particular section, what we're reading of here is God's promise to show mercy to Israel, and then beginning at verse 27, the promise to make Israel secure. So in verse 21, set up road markers for yourself, make yourself guideposts, consider well the highway, the road by which you went.

Return, O virgin Israel, return to these your cities. So this is the Lord saying the way that you came into Babylon is the way that you are going to return. You came by this road into exile. It's on this same path that God will bring you back to the land that he had promised to give to the descendants of Abraham.

They would inherit the promised land again. But there's more to it than that. For the Lord to say, set up road markers for yourself, and remember the road by which you went. How was it that they got here?

How did they get to Babylon? Not physically, not physically the road that they took, the actual landmarked road, right? The one that you could carve out of the land, the one that you could identify, that was the road that I was on.

It's got the signpost right there. I know that's the street. That's not what the Lord is referring to here. But rather symbolically, remember what you did that got you to this place so that you won't do it again.

So that when I restore you to the land, you don't go by the way of the idols again, that you may be exiled once again into the hands of captivity. You know, in the time of Jesus, when he came, when we have Jesus' earthly ministry, it happened maybe between 80, 27 to 30, or it could have been 30 to 33.

I lean more on the side of it was 27 to 30. But anyway, in that period of time that Jesus was in Jerusalem, was there idol worship? Not among the Jews. There were among the Herods, but the Herods weren't Jews.

The Herods were Edomites. So the Herods did worship false gods. And, in fact, they had homes set up in different locations. And some of the places where the Herod's palaces were placed, they would participate in the Roman and Greek festivals, which involved worship to all of these other false gods.

So the Herods would do that. The Jews themselves, though, were still monotheistic, even at the time that Jesus came. They worshiped one God. We have one temple. That's our one God. That's who we worship.

And they loved the temple. Remember Jeremiah's warning earlier in the letter, those who say we have the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. So they put their trust in the temple and thought that they were untouchable because this is where God dwells, and so who could ever come against us?

Well, that same kind of pride had seeped into the scribes and the Pharisees during the time of Jesus' earthly ministry. Still monotheistic, but they had that pride in their temple. God is on our side because look at this thing.

And even though the people did not like the Herods, and even though the Herods were actually quite pagan, acted more like the Romans than they did Jews, yet the Jews were still willing to keep the peace with the Herods because the Herods gave them that massive temple.

That was Herod the Great's temple. It's not Solomon's temple. It wasn't even the second temple period. It wasn't even the temple that Ezra and Nehemiah built during their time. It was the temple that Herod had constructed, that he expanded upon and made it huge.

So the Jews were willing to tolerate Herod, even though he wasn't willing to tolerate them, put a lot of people to death, but they were willing to get along with the Herods because he gave us this great big huge temple.

So they put their trust in the temple also. But the people during the time of Jesus were not like the Jews during this time of Jeremiah because during the time of Jesus, they were still monotheistic. They did remember the road markers.

They did not go back by the way of worshiping the false gods again. So what was the problem? What was the problem during Jesus' earthly ministry? Well, as he said, quoting from the prophet Isaiah, these people acknowledge me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

And they teach as doctrines the commandments of men. So they weren't teaching the commands of God. They had made up their own commands, and had said it is by these commands that we will inherit eternal life, not by the law of God, but by our ability to be righteous by these rules that we have made up.

And it probably started as good intentions. They were creating these rules that would keep them from disobeying God's rules, but eventually the man-made rules became the code of conduct that everybody had to live by.

And so the Pharisees are imposing upon people commandments that God had never even given. And so this was the condition of the people's heart during the time of Jesus. Set up the road markers. Remember the way by which you came, so you would not go back there.

They may not have had gold idols that they were worshiping, but they still had set in their hearts something other than God as holy. Themselves. Their own commandments. Their own made-up statutes and customs.

Roman Catholicism does the exact same thing. Eastern Orthodoxy, you go more cult-like, and then you get to Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses. They too have set up their own commands, and in many cases even their own version of Jesus, and have said it is by this way that you enter into eternal life, not the way that Jesus marks out in the Scripture.

But here in this context, as God is saying this to the Jews, as he is saying it to Israel, consider well the highway, the road by which you went, that you may not return the way that you came in. Like the actual road that they came in on, that is the road that they would go on back to the land from which they were driven.

But symbolically the Lord is saying don't come back to that way. Don't worship those false gods again. You remember what happened when you did. So we remember our sin, and we remember those wretched things that we did so that we won't repeat them.

So that we won't come down that road again. The Lord goes on to say in verse 22, How long will you waver, O faithless daughter? For the Lord has created a new thing in the earth, a woman encircles a man.

Now that's a challenging phrase. What in the world does that mean? But consider the line right before it. The Lord has created a new thing on the earth. And remember, we've got a new covenant coming up that God has promised.

He is making a new covenant beginning in verse 31. So what might it mean that a woman encircles a man? This could be a foretelling of the virgin birth. So the Messiah is coming, the Lord will come, and he will come through the womb of a woman.

Not like riding on the clouds of heaven, as though you would look up and see, Oh, there is God, and here he's coming. That's not the way they're anticipating his coming. Or at least the Lord is saying, that's not the way you should anticipate his coming.

Now that is the way that we expect the Lord to return now. That is what we're looking for. We will see him coming on the clouds of heaven. We will see him as lightning as seen from the east as far as the west, as Jesus had said in Matthew 24.

But here, this is with regards to his first advent, the coming of Jesus Christ through the virgin birth. So verse 23, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, once more they shall see these words in the land of Judah and in its cities.

When I restore their fortunes, the Lord bless you. Oh, habitation of righteousness. Oh, Holy Hill. That's from Psalm 122. That's one of the Psalms of Ascent. A-S-C-E-N-T. The Songs of Ascent. They were the songs that the children of Israel would sing as they went up to the temple.

Remember that Jerusalem is on a hill and the temple itself placed even higher than the rest of the city on Mount Moriah. So whenever the Jews would go to Jerusalem, they always went up to Jerusalem because they ascended in elevation.

And so the songs they would sing as they went to festival, as they went to worship together in the temple or even to bring sacrifices, that section of the Psalms are referred to as the Songs of Ascent.

So that is Psalm 122 that's being quoted here in Jeremiah 31 and saying, there's gonna come a day where you will go to the temple and you will be singing this song again. Israel was certainly lamenting the fact they did not have their city anymore.

They most especially did not have the temple where God dwelled with us. And here God is promising to them, I'm gonna restore everything back to you and you will sing this song again on your way up to Jerusalem and to the temple.

Verse 24, and Judah and all its cities shall dwell there together and the farmers and those who wander with their flocks. They wouldn't be nomads any longer. They too would find a home in Jerusalem and near to the house of God.

Verse 25, for I will satisfy the weary soul and every languishing soul I will replenish. Now here's the next portion that we have where God promises to make Israel secure. This is verses 26 to 30. Jeremiah awakens from his dream, the Lord telling him to remember these things and to write this down.

So verse 27, or sorry, let me read 26 again. At this I awoke and looked and my sleep was pleasant to me. What a good dream, right? God is going to have mercy on us. We're going to come back into the land the same way that we went out, but remembering not the idols that we worshiped, not being acquainted with them anymore, but worshiping the Lord, our God.

And so verse 27, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast. So there it's saying Israel and Judah.

For hundreds of years, even before the exile had taken place, before Israel was exiled by the Assyrians and Judah was exiled by the Babylonians. Hundreds of years before that, the kingdoms were divided.

Israel was the Northern kingdom, Judah, the Southern. And so even though they were kin, they didn't get along. There was constant controversy, like civil war that was ongoing between the Jews and the Israelites.

But here, God is promising that they will be reunited. I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah. They won't be contesting factions any longer. Occasionally, one of the kings of Judah would try to make peace with the king of Israel.

That was one of the things that Jehoshaphat really wanted. He wanted there to be peace again between the North and South. But it was the Lord that had caused this division as a curse because of Solomon, because of what Solomon did.

Solomon had built temples to the gods of his wives, the false gods of his wives. And so the curse that had come upon the kingdom as a result of this was the division into the Northern and the Southern kingdom.

Here, God is promising, when you come back, you're going to be one. Israel and Judah will be together as one with the seed of man and the seed of beast. In other words, you're going to be fruitful and multiply.

You will have more people, greater population, and the animals even will be provided for you as well. You will have abundant flocks. It was God who brought this judgment upon Judah because of their sin.

Judgment upon Israel, judgment upon Judah. Even though it was at the hands of these foreign armies, it was God who had done this. The whole reason why you have Isaiah's prophecy that is written 100 years before these things even take place was so the Jews would know.

When this happens, you'll know that it was I who did it. No one else could have purposed this thing. It was me. And the Babylonians, the Assyrians, they will be as weapons in my hand to accomplish what it is that I mean for them to do, bringing punishment on my children who had rebelled against God and had worshiped false gods.

But the Lord is promising here that he will watch over them again. Not watch over them to bring them destruction, but watch over them to restore them and bring them back to their land. Verse 29, in those days, they shall no longer say the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.

Eating sour grapes or drinking sour wine. The vinegar makes the teeth sting. So this is actually a parallelism. The fathers have eaten sour grapes. The children's teeth are set on edge. So seeing as how all generations were affected by the punishment that God brought upon Israel and Judah, but now it's not going to be that all the generations will suffer because of what God has brought upon them.

For, as it goes on to detail in verse 30, everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. So it's not trickling down into other generations. A man will pay for his own sins.

Will have to answer for his own sins. And this is leading up to the promise of the new covenant. So in this new covenant, we don't enter into that covenant because of who we're born into, because of the family that we're born into.

We enter into that covenant by each person's own faith. Not the faith of somebody else, but your faith in God is what sets you in that covenant. Faith in Jesus Christ. And so it is upon each and every one of us.

Every one of us coming before God, we have to answer for our own sins. No one can go on your behalf and apologize or ask forgiveness for your sins. No one can do that. Whereas in the system, the old covenant system, in the sacrificial system, this is the way sacrifices would be done.

A father ahead of his household might sacrifice for everybody else in his family. But here it is being said, and this setting up for the new covenant, that every person is going to have to answer for themselves.

You're not born into this covenant. You're born again into this covenant. By faith in Jesus Christ, those who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. My friends, do not go by the way of sin that brought you to the place that you are in with Christ.

It was a path of wickedness that brought you to the place of realizing, I'm going to perish under the judgment of God. I need a savior, and Jesus Christ is that savior. The gospel came to you at exactly the time that God had meant for it to come.

And when you heard and believed, you were saved by faith. So don't go back that way again. Don't return to your sin, but walk in the righteousness of Christ that we have been given. If you stumble along the way, you sin on the way, turn back to Christ, seek his forgiveness, and he will have mercy on you and establish you in his kingdom forever.

The New Thing God Will Do Through the Virgin Birth

Heavenly Father, we thank you for when we read the scriptures and hear of your goodwill toward us in Christ Jesus, that we may rejoice and that we may live in a way that is pleasing unto you. It pleased you to give your son as an atoning sacrifice for us.

So may it please you that we would believe in him and walk in his ways. Lead us in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

This has been When We Understand the Text with 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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