Jeremiah 33:10,11

Desolation And Waste Will Be Replaced By Joy And Gladness, Marriage Celebrations and Worship, Because YHWH Will Have Delivered His People From Their Captivity (Jeremiah 33:10).

Once again we have the ‘before' and ‘after' of which Jeremiah is so fond, in that he first depicts the utter desolation of Jerusalem and Judah, ‘waste without man and beast', and contrasts it with the following times of joy and gladness, when weddings will be celebrated with merriment, worshippers will give vibrant thanks to YHWH for His covenant love, and thanksgiving offerings will be sacrificed in the house of YHWH.

Jeremiah 33:10

“Thus says YHWH,

Yet again there will be heard in this place,

Of which you say, ‘It is waste, without man and without beast,'

Even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem,

Which are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without beast,

The voice of joy and the voice of gladness,

The voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride,

The voice of those who say, ‘Give thanks to YHWH of hosts,

For YHWH is good, for his covenant love endures for ever,'

Who bring sacrifices of thanksgiving into the house of YHWH,

For I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first,

Says YHWH.”

‘This place' clearly refers both to Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah and thus indicates the whole land. At present it is a desolate waste (with Jerusalem awaiting the final denouement) and will shortly be bereft of its inhabitants and all forms of civilisation, a deserted land stripped of life. But when the time comes for YHWH to act He will restore life to it, men and women will once more dwell there voicing their joy and gladness, marriages will again be joyous affairs and worshippers of YHWH will give thanks to Him for His goodness and His everlasting covenant love (chesed). The house of YHWH will have been restored, and worshippers will bring there their thanksgiving offerings out of gratitude for what He has done for them, for He will have restored Jerusalem and Judah back to what it was in the glory days. Note the opening and closing ‘says YHWH' which emphasises that it is all His doing.

In all this we must not overlook the problems that would be involved. Uprooted from the lands which they had begun to call home because of the lure of their true homeland, taking the long and weary journeys back to that homeland with all their belongings, settling into what had become a foreign environment, coping with the jealousies and schemings of their neighbours, struggling to re-establish themselves in the land, and to re-establish the fruitfulness of a land that had gone to waste, eventually after twenty or more years rebuilding the Temple, although but a mere shadow of what it had been before (and yet one which would last longer than any other of their Temples and would be truly the people's), and finally after a hundred years rebuilding Jerusalem as once more a semi-independent city. It would not be easy, nor would all necessarily go well. But they were a hardy people, and eventually the land was restored. As so often God's work was not spectacular, but was ground out through the sufferings of His people.