Jeremiah 31:9

They shall come with weeping; some think that it had been better translated, They went weeping; for though the verb be the future tense in the Hebrew, yet that tense hath often the signification of the preterperfect tense; thus it answereth, Psalms 126:5,6, He that goeth forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again rejoicing, &c.; but there is no need of it here, for there is a weeping for joy, as well as for sorrow, as we have it in the instances both of Jacob and Joseph, Genesis 29:11, Genesis 43:30; and thus the text correspondeth with that, Malachi 12:10, I will pour upon them the Spirit of grace and supplications, and they shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and mourn. Weeping also here may be understood for their past sins. I will cause them to walk, by the rivers of waters; and they shall have no want as they had when they came out of Egypt, through the wilderness, where they often wanted water. In a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble; neither shall they have any rough ways, nor turn backward and forward, as God made them to do in their passage through the wilderness. For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born; for as I have the affection of a father for all Israel, so will I show the care and kindness of a father to them, and use them as a man useth his first-born; so God anciently called the Jews, Exodus 4:22, they being the first of all nations, whom God owned and took into covenant, and who owned God, and worshipped the true and living God only.