Jeremiah 3:11-14

C. The Call to Repentance Jeremiah 3:11-14

TRANSLATION

(11) And the LORD said unto me, More righteous is Backsliding Israel than Treacherous Judah. (12) Go and call these words to the north and say, Return, O Backsliding Israel (oracle of the LORD). I will not frown on you for I am kind (oracle of the LORD): I will not keep anger for ever. (13) But realize your iniquity, that against the LORD your God you have transgressed and you scattered your ways to strangers under every green tree and you did not obey My voice (oracle of the LORD). (14) Return, O Backsliding sons (oracle of the LORD), for I am married to you and I will take you one of a city and two from a family and I will bring you to Zion.

COMMENTS

The present paragraph indicates that Jeremiah had a warm regard for the exiles of the northern kingdom, The sins of Israel though considerable were less than those of Judah (Jeremiah 3:11). Why does God regard Judah as more guilty? Because Judah had before her the example of Israel. More light brings greater responsibility in the sight of God. Furthermore, Judah was guilty of hypocrisy in her dealings with God (see Jeremiah 3:10). God still yearns for Israel's repentance and return even after a hundred years of punishment in exile. So the prophet is instructed to cry out toward the north i.e., Assyria where the ten tribes had been deported (2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 18:11). The word return in the Old Testament carries the idea of going back to the original point of departure.[147] If Israel repents they will find that God is kind and anxious to receive them. He will not frown upon them and continue to be angry with them if they will but repent (Jeremiah 3:12).

[147] W. L. Holladay, The Root Subh in the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1958).

The return to God must be accompanied by sincere confession and acknowledgement of sin. Confession, which always precedes forgiveness, is telling God what He already knows about us. In the present case the confession was to involve acknowledgement of iniquity, transgression and disobedience. They had scattered their ways in the sense of wandering in every direction seeking gods whose service was deemed more enjoyable and beneficial than the service of the Lord (Jeremiah 3:13).

In Jeremiah 3:1 LI the Lord, first as a Father and then as an Husband, pleads with Backsliding Israel to return. The marriage relationship to the nation Israel may have been severed (Jeremiah 3:8) but God is still the husband of every individual Israelite, The you in this verse is plural in the Hebrew referring to individuals. Not many will accept the gracious invitation to repent. Mass conversion was no longer a live option. God knew that most of those exiled Israelites would not return to Him. But if only one from a whole city or two from a whole clan or tribe repents the Lord will not overlook those individuals. He will bring back to Zion everyone who turns to Him in sincere repentance (Jeremiah 3:14). The verse clearly underlines the fact that God is concerned with individuals and that only a few from the northern tribes would actually return to Palestine. The post-exilic records in Ezra and Nehemiah reveal that a few, but only a few, of the exiles from the northern tribes did return after the collapse of Babylon in 539 B.C. But the prophecy has a higher fulfillment. Zion in prophecy frequently represents the Messianic kingdom. Zion is not a geographical location but a spiritual condition. The passage then speaks of the conversion of sinners and the incorporation of the redeemed into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.