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by David B. Curtis
Chapters 32 and 33 have a different setting and even a different style. Nontheless, those 4 chapters, 30-33 tend to speak about positives things beyond the immediate captivity and judgement that has been predicted and would be further predicted afterwards. Now, just like the prophecies of Isaiah, this little book of comfort has some things that are a little hard to interpret because there seem to be to periods of comfort in mind. On the one hand there is very obvious and clear reference to the return of the exiles from Babylon which happened 70 years after they went in. In other words there is sort of a short range fulfillment in the natural of the people who were in captivity returning to their homeland. But there are also interspersed very clear prophecies of the Messiah and His kingdom who obviously did not come at that time. The captives did not begin to return from Babylon until 536 BC and Jesus didn't come for another 500 years. But still there are indisputeable references to the Messiah and to His Kingdom and to the great glorious times He was bringing including the new covenant in chapter 31. So just like Isaiah chapters 40-66, these chapters have an intermixing of two themes. Both of them are comforting but I think we can legitimately say that the first of the two is a type of the second. That is to say, that the return of the exiles is a type and shadow of salvation just as, what is abundently clear in Scripture, the Exodus was. This is all established very well by New Testament statements. In fact we see earlier in Jeremiah that this second type of exodus will eclipse the first one: Jer. 23:7 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “that they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ 8 but, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land.” So it quite clear that the concept of the exodus and that of the return of the exiles from Babylon have similarity in meaning. And its quite fair to suggest the return of the exiles is a type of New Testament salvation just like the exodus is. There are a few places in the New Testament that hint at this but it is nowhere as clearly pressed as the point about the exodus from Egypt being a type of salvation. Yet there are a few places where the New Testament writers quote from Old Testament passages that seem to be about the return of the exiles from Babylon and they apply these passages to the new covenant and therefore we are compelled to see it that way. What makes this confusing is even as it is in Isaiah, so here in Jeremiah, the two periods are intermixed. Sometimes there is a statement about the return from Babylon followed immediately about the Messianic age. In some cases it is hard to make out about which of the two is being referred. In other words this is a general comforting word that has maybe one sense to its fulfillment. A natural sense and a spiritual sense of what the Messiah will bring to His people. A number of passages in our Jeremiah look talk about a restoration that is permanent and that will never be undone. These references must certainly be talking about the Church age rather than the return from Babylon because when the Jews did return from Babylon they did not have an eternal security forever from enemies. In fact they were overrun a great deal by the Greeks and all the way up to being under subjection by the Romans and eventually they were destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. So we know that the return from Babylon was not the last or permanent deliverance of which he speaks. For this reason some people suggest that we have to think in terms of a return to the land in the last days of time. And then it will be at that time, the end of the church age, that God will draw the Jews from all nations and they will have a perpetual peace in the new found land and never be driven out. There is little or nothing in these passages or any other to suggest the return of Jews to their land towards the end of time. The return to the Jews to the land was fulfilled in about 70 years from the time that Jeremiah predicted this. And there is no suggestion that they would be drawn back a second time after that. Rather, I think we should understand that those prophecies about a permanent salvation, a permanent security, a permanent peace - that these apply to the spiritual peace and security that comes through the Messiah. Not some secondary return to the land from some secondary dispersion. Of course there are people who take another view and this does not bother me as I am fairly convinced of my own views but some of you may take the view that these prophecies cannot really be done justice to unless we postulate another despersion - that being 70AD - followed by another return to the land which some would say is happening today. You are welcome to see it that way but in my opinion you would be mistaken. What we are about to read in chapter 30 of Jeremiah up through chapter 31:26, came to Jeremiah in a dream. He doesn't tell us so in the beginning but he tells so in the end. So lets take a look at Jer. chapter 30.
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2 “Thus speaks the LORD God of Israel, saying: ‘Write in a book for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you. 3 For behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘that I will bring back from captivity My people Israel and Judah,’ says the LORD. ‘And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.’”
Of fear, and not of peace. 6 Ask now, and see, Whether a man is ever in labor with child? So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins Like a woman in labor, And all faces turned pale? 7 Alas! For that day is great, So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, Side note: You have heard the expression - the time of Jacob's trouble - applied to the great tribulation at the end of the age. The application of this term to the great tribulation is one of the arguements for a pre-tribulation rapture. That is, a rapture which will take the church out of the world before the tribulation years come because it is said that the tribulation is not for the Church but is for Israel - its the time of Jacob's trouble and a time of God bringing judgement upon apostate Israel. This arguement sounds almost reasonable on the surface but when it is thought out and even if it were true that this phrase is indicating the great tribulation, it doesn't mean that the Church can't be here. After all God could keep the Church safe in the tribulation and punish Israel at the same time. He did the same thing to Egypt when the Israelites were among them. So it certainly no proof of a pre-trib rapture. The worst part of this is that the identification of the time of Jacob's trouble is that the idea of the great tribulation is totally unwarrented scripturally. The expression of the time of Jacob's trouble is found one time in the whole Bible and that place is right here in Jeremiah. And its not talking about some 7 year tribulation at the end of time, instead this is talking about the judgement upon Judah.
Now, I consulted the NIV Study Bible on this verse. The NIV tries to be objective and tries not to give away its biases very often but here they gave away their dispensational bias a little bit. They said "This prophecy has a short range fulfillment in view, but ultimately it looks for a time far off". So why did they say this? Its because that's what dispensationalists say. But where does it say that in the passage? Now, what it does say is: This is very much like what Jeremiah has been saying all along. Its a time of Jacob's trouble, and that's fair enough. When the Babylonians came in and wiped them out that was trouble for the Jews. But they will be delivered out of it and this is also what Jeremiah has been saying. There is nothing in here that forces us to the view that this time of Jacob's trouble is meant for a far future event.
But he shall be saved out of it.
Foreigners shall no more enslave them.
We need to understand that the name David became the name of a dynasty and every king who sat on that throne after David was in a sense a continuation of that family name and dynasty. And Jesus was of David's seed and the prophets sometimes called Him David. The same is said in Hosea 3:4,5 saying:
I believe that many years without a king was in a time prior to the coming of Christ during the inter-testamental period. 10 ‘ Therefore do not fear, O My servant Jacob,’ says the LORD,
‘ Nor be dismayed, O Israel;
The context is the return from exile and Jeremiah 30 is using this point to further the context.
Yet I will not make a complete end of you.
‘ Your affliction is incurable,
14 All your lovers have forgotten you;
17 For I will restore health to you
18 “Thus says the LORD:
‘ Behold, I will bring back the captivity of Jacob’s tents,
In the latter days you will consider it.
Jeremiah maybe saying that the things within this chapter may have what could be an obvious fulfillment for their time but there is another fulfillment that is not so obvious until a later time. Thus we read Luke 24:45.
10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12 To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into.
See also Daniel 12:9
9 And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 10 Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand.
The kings of this world did not understand the secret wisdom of God therefore they crucified Christ. Paul said if they had understood they would not have done so. But the wise, the apostles, did understand. The people you really did have the wisdom of God did understand finally in the last days, but was not permitted to understand and so was it with all the prophets. It was sealed up to the end of the Jewish age at 70AD, the time of the end. Remember Peter said he was living at the time of the end. All the Apostles claimed to be living at that time.
The book of Hebrews claims it, the book of 1 Peter claims it, Paul claimed it, that they were living in the end. So when Jeremiah says at the end of chapter 30
Apparently means that there is something about these prophecies that you are not understanding and cannot understand and will not be understood until the latter times. Those latter times are when the new covenant era came and Jesus poured out His spirit on His disciples and when He opened up their understanding as noted above. And then its interesting that they tended to apply these things to the Church age. Remember Peter's words?
Those were the things the prophets did not understand. Today, the natural man cannot recieve the things of God. Elsewhere in Eph 2 and Colosians Paul said that the mystery was something that had not been previously revealed to the sons of men but was now revealed to the apostles through the Spirit.
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