Jeremiah 31:9

with weeping tears of contrition, cp. Jeremiah 3:21. But LXX, "They went forth with weeping, but with consolation will I bring them back," though giving quite a different turn to the passage, may well be correct. As Peake points out, the LXX are supported by the great prominence given in 2 Isaiah to the comforting of Israel.

by rivers to rivers. Neither thirst nor roughness of the road shall trouble them as they traverse the desert homewards. Cp. Isaiah 41:18; Isaiah 43:19 f., Jeremiah 48:21; Jeremiah 49:10; so Isaiah 40:4 (mg.), Jeremiah 42:16. Cp. also Isaiah 35.

Ephraim is my firstborn It is remarkable, if this passage be not Jeremianic, that Ephraim should be granted by the writer the title of firstborn. But cp. 1 Chronicles 5:1-3.