Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Jeremiah 31:16-22
Rachel's Weeping Will, However, Be Rewarded, For Her Children Will Be Returned To Her, And They Will Come To YHWH In Repentance And Be Received By Him As A Beloved Son (Jeremiah 31:16).
The call now comes to the weeping ‘Rachel' to cease her weeping, because her activity has been rewarded. Her children would return from the land of their enemies to within their own borders, giving hope for the future. For they have returned in repentance acknowledging the chastisement of YHWH, and YHWH is ready to receive them as His beloved children.
‘Thus says YHWH,'
YHWH continues to speak and bring about His will.
“Refrain your voice from weeping,
And your eyes from tears,
For your activity (work) will be rewarded,
The word of YHWH,
And they will come again from the land of the enemy,
And there is hope for your latter end,
The word of YHWH,
And your children will come again to their own border.”
In context the words are spoken to Rachel who was weeping for her children, whoever she was seen as representing. Her weeping is seen as being duly rewarded, on the sure word of YHWH. Her mourning and repentance will succeed. For she is assured that eventually (in around fifty years time) her children will come from the land of the enemy. She therefore has hope for her later days. And there would indeed have been some alive when the exiles returned who had been left as a remnant in Israel/Judah and could be seen as ‘Rachel'. They would see their hopes fulfilled at their ‘latter end'. And this on the sure word of YHWH. For their ‘children' would come again to their own border within their lifetime.
“I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself,
‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised,
As a calf unaccustomed (to the yoke or to serving),
Turn you me, and I will be turned,
For you are YHWH my God.”
Ephraim is now pictured as bemoaning herself, and calling on YHWH, accepting that it is He Who has chastised them. That is why they have been chastised (the repetition emphasising the fact). They admit to being like a calf unaccustomed. either to the yoke or to service or to both, who needed to be chastened. And they thus call on YHWH as their God to ‘turn them' (bring them to repentant response), for it is only if He does it that it will be successful. They recognise their own inability to save themselves (the first essential for conversion).
‘Ephraim' may here refer to the repentant among the exiles of the northern kingdom, or more probably to the repentant among all the exiles both north and south. Either way the important lesson is that it was those who had repented who were now acceptable among YHWH's people, those who had accepted that what had happened to them had happened as the chastening of YHWH. It is the remnant who repent and return, not the whole of Israel. Thus it is an Israel within Israel. This Israel within Israel is the constant theme of the Old Testament. They are ‘the holy seed' (Isaiah 6:13). It will finally issue in the large remnant who will respond to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith forming the new nation of Israel in the time of Jesus and the Apostles (Matthew 21:43).
(Note: It is often argued that no such repentance as this was obvious among the returning exiles as we look at the way in which they are depicted in Ezra/Nehemiah/Haggai/Zechariah/Malachi, but that is to overlook the fact that the returnees were very human and had huge obstacles to surmount. Their describe behaviour did not mean that underneath there was not genuine repentance in what mattered most. If we try to diminish the glory of the return from exile by pointing to the weak spiritual state of the returnees we would do well to ask how we ourselves compare, and how we would have reacted to their situation and hardships. YHWH certainly saw earthshaking events as taking place at the time of their return (Haggai 2:21). And we should notice that it is regularly through such weakness that God accomplishes His work. Many of Paul's churches were nothing to write home about, and when we look at the later church we have to be filled with wonderment that anything spiritual survived at all. And yet remarkably it did. It is therefore to be lacking in spiritual awareness to suggest that, because we know of many problems among the long stream of returning exiles, as brought to our notice by the writings of Ezra, Nehemiah and Malachi, there were not truly repentant groups among the exiles who returned who were activated by the Spirit of God, any more than we can say that the outward worldliness of the church means that there is no genuine spiritual element among them, or indeed that large numbers of even the less spiritual are not encompassed within God's plan of salvation. Man looks at the outward appearance, and judges by earthly standards (and by an optimistic view of himself as compared with others), but God looks at the heart. And it is in fact God's very boast that He works through the weak and the foolish (1 Corinthians 1:26). Those struggling returnees in fact formed the advanced battalion of a mighty army of weak, struggling saints who would eventually re-establish Israel, despite their weakness, and we should recognise that there must have been a great hunger for God among them for them to brave the perils of the return journey in order that they might worship YHWH in their own land. That is so whatever may have been their faults. (Nothing could be more unlike the case of modern Israel, for, apart from the initial few, the returnees of modern Israel mainly knew that they would be arriving in a prosperous and thriving modern nation. In contrast, the ancient exiles did not know to what they were returning. They simply struggled forward in faith).
We must remember that we only learn the worst of what happened among the returnees precisely because it was that that had to be rebuked. We can compare how in the Book of Judges it is the periods of failure of which we have details, not the periods of success marked by the words ‘then the land had rest for -- years'. Furthermore the list of faithful witnesses in Hebrews 11 confirms that the faithful remnant were always there, shining out among the faithless, and known and treasured by God. It was they who were the Israel whom YHWH had restored, and who largely rallied to the Maccabees in Israel's time of need. And many of them became a part of the martyrs listed in Hebrews 11.
And it was those who later followed them, inspire by a similar zeal, who would, in the days of Jesus and the Apostles, believe in the Messiah and form the new Israel in the face of much persecution from the cast off Jews. And it is they who, as ‘the church of the firstborn', are the ones who at times have faithfully endured persecution ever since. They will all be among the multitude which no man can number who will enter into the everlasting kingdom (Revelation 7:9; Revelation 7:14). In a sense then the ‘return from exile' has taken 2,500 years, but at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ our exile will be over. It is rather amusing to think that some see this weakness of the returnees as in some way being an argument for seeing these prophecies as pointing to a millennial kingdom, as though people then would be different from the exiles of Jeremiah's time and not be weak and failing. And this is especially so when we know that the general view of that kingdom is that it will end in apostasy and Satanism. Where then is the difference? If it were truly referring to that it would be describing something even more spurious).
“Surely after I was turned, I repented,
And after I was instructed, I smote on my thigh,
I was ashamed, yes, even confounded,
Because I bore the reproach of my youth.”
We have here His people's confession. Having been turned through YHWH's chastening they have repented. Having been instructed by YHWH's chastening, they have smitten their thighs in shame and anguish. They have been ashamed and confounded because they are bearing the reproach of their younger days. And they have humbled themselves before Him.
For a parallel example of smiting on the thigh we can compare an extract from Homer, ‘and then he groaned and smote on both his thighs, with headlong hands and thus in sorrow spoke.'
Is Ephraim my dear son?
Is he a darling child?
For as often as I speak against him,
I do earnestly remember him still,
Therefore my heart yearns for him,
I will surely have mercy on him,
The word of YHWH.”
YHWH's response is one of love, the response of a father to a repentant wayward child. The questions are intended to be answered with a ‘yes'. Yes, ‘Ephraim' (Israel/Judah) is His dear son. Yes, ‘Ephraim' is His darling child. While He may have to speak against him and criticise him, even bring him, as it were, before the justices (fathers of the sub-clan as signifying the heavenly court?), He still earnestly remembers him as His son. Israel is not entirely cast off. And so YHWH's heart yearns for his return to true sonship, with full willingness to have mercy upon him. This was the purpose of his arraignment. And this is the assured word of YHWH.
“Set you up road signs,
Make yourself guide-posts,
Set your heart toward the highway,
Even the way by which you went,
Turn again, O virgin of Israel,
Turn again to these your cities.”
So now that the Father is ready to receive the prodigal son He calls on him to prepare for his journey home. When a king or a wealthy man was going on a journey in those days, with his retinue, especially to an unknown country, there were those who could be sent ahead to set up indicators along the best road so that the way ahead would be smooth (they had no maps or satellite navigation). Alternately it might signify pioneers who left the road marks for those who followed. And they were to return by the way in which they went, the shortest route. For the virgin of Israel, now once again purified, were to return to their cities and to their obedience to YHWH. More detail is given in Jeremiah 31:23.
“How long will you go hither and thither,
O you backsliding daughter?
For YHWH has created a new thing in the earth,
A woman will encompass a man.”
For there is no longer any need for them to be going hither and thither among the nations, as a backsliding daughter (the opposite of a virgin of Israel) powerless to help herself (compare Jeremiah 15:4; Jeremiah 24:9; Jeremiah 29:18), for YHWH has done a new thing in the earth. He has enabled ‘the woman' (virgin Israel), in every case in different parts of the world, to gain primacy over ‘the he man', those who were in authority over them. With rare exceptions such an idea was inconceivable in those days, for women were very much dependent on men. But it will happen now for in each place of captivity the virgin daughter of Israel will ‘surround' the man, the nations, the stronger than she (Jeremiah 31:11), who had taken possession of her, like a victorious army surrounds a city. The weak and defenceless virgin of Israel will gain primacy over the strong who seek to override her, bringing them into submission so as to obtain her release.
It is in fact quite possible in this regard that there was a popular proverb declaring, ‘A man will encompass a woman', indicating man's superiority. If that be so, it is now turned topsy turvy, as Israel/Judah, YHWH's ‘virgin', causes the nations to yield to her desire for freedom.
‘A woman will encompass a man.' Some, however, translate as ‘embrace', and see it as signifying that the virgin of Israel will embrace YHWH, by responding to His will. It is a beautiful thought, but it is not quite clear how that can be seen as a totally new thing. We already know that she had embraced YHWH in the wilderness, so that this would not be a new thing (Jeremiah 2:2). And women were in fact regularly embracing men.