Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Jeremiah 31:27-30
In Coming Days YHWH Will Re-establish Israel and Judah In The Land And Will Build Them Up (Jeremiah 31:27).
YHWH's promise is that He will, once the time is ripe, sow the land with men and animals so that they will grow and multiply and fill the land, after which He will build and plant so as to establish His people in the land. The miracle of the restoration of Israel/Judah in the land is often only too easily overlooked by those who think only in terms of ‘the end times'. There was still a long time to go before the end times would be even a whisper on the horizon. Meanwhile YHWH would re-establish His people in an empty land to such an extent that by the time of Jesus both Judaea and Galilee would be well populated and relatively prosperous.
“Behold, the days come, the word of YHWH, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.”
The land of promise, (‘the house of Israel and the house of Judah'), is pictured as a fertile field waiting to be resown. And YHWH's promise is that He will Himself be the Sower, and will sow it with human and animal life so that it will once more be populated by men and by animals, as a land should be unless it is a desert. The description of His activity as sowing indicates that the process will be a gradual one. The seed will be sown and the grain will grow gradually, being resown again and again.
“And it will come about that, just as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, the word of YHWH.”
And just as He had previously watched over them to pluck them down and break them down, to overthrow them and destroy them because of their sinfulness, He will now act in the opposite way to build them up and to plant them, and this in accordance with the sure word of YHWH. The assumption is being made (made explicitly elsewhere - Jeremiah 29:12; Jeremiah 31:9; Jeremiah 31:18; Jeremiah 31:23) that they are now seeking Him. This description was in accordance with His promise from the commencement of Jeremiah's ministry (Jeremiah 1:10) and other previous promises (Jeremiah 18:9; Jeremiah 24:6). Israel and Judah would once more be planted in the land as those who now sought YHWH with all their hearts. And as at the beginning, YHWH would be ‘watching' over His word to perform it (Jeremiah 1:12).
This re-establishment of His people in the land was very necessary if His other promises were to be fulfilled. From this people and this land would develop the whole of God's plans for the future as first Jesus Christ came and fulfilled the work of salvation, and then as He established a Jewish remnant and sent out Jewish missionaries to take His message to the world. But beyond it we may see the settlement of God's people in the eternal kingdom. For that is the end to which all else is aiming.
“In those days they will no more say,
The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
And the children's teeth are set on edge.”
In the future the situation would be such that everyone would be responsible for his own sins. The nation would no longer be judged as a nation any more. No longer would the well know proverb be cited that, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.” Each individual would be responsible for himself. They would no longer be able to throw the blame for what was happening to them onto their fathers. The implications of this, if fathomed, were quite huge. It was indicating the ‘secularisation' of the state which was no longer seen as responsible to God as one whole.
“But every one will die for his own iniquity, every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.”
For in future judgment was to be an individual thing. It was the one who sinned who would die (compare Ezekiel 18:4; Ezekiel 18:20). It was the one who ate sour grapes whose teeth would suffer for it. We might ask how this fits in with the warning that the sins of the fathers would be visited on their children to the third and the fourth generation? The answer is not difficult. They would be so because those generations would sin as well in a similar way as a result of the influence of their forebears. But the way was always left open for repentance, at which point the law would cease to apply. God is always depicted as ready to respond to men's repentance. Even the Jerusalem of Zedekiah's day could have been saved by true repentance, as many examples from the past indicate (compare 1 Kings 1:27; Jonah 3:10).