Jeremiah 31:35-37

F. A New Commitment Jeremiah 31:35-37

TRANSLATION

(35) Thus says the LORD who gave the sun for light by day, and the statutes of moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so its waves roar; the LORD of hosts is His name: (36) If these statutes shall be removed from before Me (oracle of the LORD), then the seed of Israel shall cease being a nation before Me forever. (37) Thus says the LORD: If heaven above can be measured, or the foundations of the earth below searched out, then I will reject all the seed of Israel because of all that they have done (oracle of the LORD).

COMMENTS

In view of the establishment of the new covenant with the spiritual Israel of God, the church of Christ, God makes an astonishing commitment. The old covenant was broken by Israel and therefore the nation was rejected by the Lord. This will no more take place under the new covenant. God's faithfulness in keeping His ordinances in the realm of nature are here offered as a pledge that He will similarly keep His covenant commitments. The sun, moon, and stars daily perform their assigned tasks of governing the day and the night. The waves of the sea never cease their constant ebb and flow, roaring, crashing against the beach (Jeremiah 31:35). As certainly as the laws of nature are inviolable, so certainly shall Israel everlastingly continue as a nation before the Lord (Jeremiah 31:36). To the end of this world God will always have a special people and that people is Israel. The outward form of Israel has changed through the yearsa patriarchal family, confederation of tribes, monarchy, hierocracy. At times during those centuries since Jacob and his family migrated to Egypt all formal, outward governmental organization ceased to exist. Israel as a nation ceased to exist in 587 B.C. but Israel as a people survived the destruction of their homeland and deportation to a foreign land. Jeremiah is in the present passage looking to a time when the outward form of Israel would change once again. The Israel he envisions would be a pure theocracy ruled from heaven itself. It would be an invisible kingdom, a kingdom not of this world, a kingdom unlike anything this world has ever known.

Jeremiah 31:37 underscores the same thought as is found in the previous two verses. The heavens above are immeasurable and the earth beneath unsearchable. On the day that man is able to measure the heavens and search out the foundations of the earthon that day and not beforeGod will cast off the new covenant Israel as He had the Israel of old. This is equivalent to saying that God will never cast off His people.