Jeremiahchapter 30
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Key verse
And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the Lord.
It stands in scene C of the chapter, verses 18 to 24.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The Book of Consolation opens with a command to write all these words in a book, because the captivity of both Israel and Judah will be turned. First the terror: men holding their loins like a woman in travail: 'Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it' (30:7), a day read here as the tribulation still ahead of Israel. Then rescue: the yoke broken, 'they shall serve Jehovah their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.' The incurable wound is healed; the city rebuilt on its own heap; ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Context
Prophecy · Jeremiah · Jeremiah overview
Where the chapter sits
Jeremiah 30 falls in Book of consolation (chapters 30–33). The New Covenant (31:31–34); the purchase of the field at Anathoth (32); the Branch of righteousness (33). The book's theological centre.
Before it: Against kings, prophets, and priests, chapters 21–29. After it: Jerusalem's fall narrated, chapters 34–45.
The whole shape of Jeremiah→The world behind this chapter
Jeremiah 30The history
The chapter begins with an instruction to write all these words in a book. That is deliberate archiving. Words spoken in a doomed city vanish with it; words written on a scroll can be carried into exile, copied, and read to a generation born a long way from home.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The images of injury are medical. Your hurt is incurable, your wound is grievous, there is no one to plead your cause, no medicine for your sore, and then the reversal, I will restore health to you and heal your wounds. In that world a wound was cleaned, dressed with oil and resin, and bound. To say no one binds it up is to say the patient has been abandoned.
One line names a period the rest of Scripture returns to: that day is great, so that none is like it, a time of trouble for Jacob, but he shall be saved out of it. Read in the traditional framework this looks past the Babylonian disaster to a still-future distress for Israel, ended by the LORD's own deliverance and followed by the reign of David's king, the same sequence the prophets and the book of Revelation lay out.
The chapter also promises the return of ordinary life: a city rebuilt on its own mound, a palace where it used to stand, thanksgiving and the sound of merrymakers, and a ruler who comes from among their own people rather than being installed by an empire.
What it meant to them
For first hearers the point of writing it down was that they would need it when nothing around them agreed with it. This is a document meant to outlive the city it was written in.
The heart of it is a reversal they would have thought impossible: the God who is bringing this on them is the same one who says I am with you to save you, and I will make a full end of all the nations among whom I scattered you, but of you I will not make a full end.
Sources cited
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Jeremiah
- John Bright, Jeremiah (Anchor Bible)
A. Write All the Words in a Book: the Time of Jacob's Trouble
1. (vv. 1-4)
a.The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: The command is explicit: write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book, Scripture identifying its own origin as dictation set down for the future rather than private meditation recalled later. The promise that follows names both houses together, I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, the same double naming that carries through to the new covenant of chapter 31. The Book of Consolation opens as a document meant to outlast the exile it describes.
Jeremiah 30:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 30:1
“The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord,.... The word of prophecy, us the Targum. Some make this to be the "thirteenth" sermon of the prophet's; it is a consolatory one, as Kimchi observes: saying; as follows:”
Jeremiah 30:1
“In Jer. 30–39, not all written at the same time, are gathered together whatsoever God had revealed to Jeremiah of happier import for the Jewish people. This subject is “the New covenant.” In contrast then with the rolls of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, we here have one containing the nation’s hope. A considerable portion was written in the 10th year of Zedekiah, when famine and pestilence were busy in the city, its capture daily more imminent, and the prophet himself in prison.”
Jeremiah 30:2, 2 voices
Jeremiah 30:2
“Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book - The book here recommended I believe to be the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters; for among the Hebrews any portion of writing, in which the subject was finished, however small, was termed ספר sepher, a Book, a treatise or discourse.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:2
“Write . . . in a book--After the destruction of Jerusalem Jeremiah is not ordered as heretofore to speak, but to write the succeeding prophecy (Jer 30:4, &c.), so as thereby it might be read by his countrymen wheresoever they might be in their dispersion.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 30:3, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:3
“The days come - First, After the conclusion of the seventy years. Secondly, Under the Messiah. That I will bring again the captivity of Israel - The ten tribes, led captive by the king of Assyria, and dispersed among the nations. And Judah - The people carried into Babylon at two different times; first, under Jeconiah, and, secondly, under Zedekiah, by Nebuchadnezzar.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:4, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:4
“And these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel, and concerning Judah. Which follow in this chapter and the next; first concerning Israel, the ten tribes; and then concerning the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, even concerning all Israel; whereas, if this prophecy only respects the return from the captivity in Babylon, there is very little in it which concerns the ten tribes, or but a very few of them. The words may be rendered, "unto Israel, and unto Judah"; as being the persons to whom they were directed, as well as were the subjects of them.”
2. (vv. 5-7)
a.a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace: The nation's fear is described in the rawest terms, a voice of trembling and not of peace, men gripped like a woman in labor, every face gone pale, language of terror rather than of comfort. Yet the verse turns on itself: alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it, but he shall be saved out of it, judgment and rescue held in one breath. The phrase the time of Jacob's trouble became, in later Jewish and Christian reading alike, a name for the nation's final ordeal before deliverance, a use the commentators trace directly to this verse.
Jeremiah 30:5, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:5
“Better, as in the margin. The prophet places his hearers in the center of Babylon, and describes it as convulsed with terror as the armies of Cyrus draw near. The voice of trembling is the war-cry of the advancing host: while fear and no peace implies that even among the exiles there is only alarm at the prospect of the city, where they had so long dwelt, being destroyed.”
Jeremiah 30:6, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:6
“All faces shall be turned into paleness. The word signifies not only such paleness as arises from a sudden fright, but that which is the effect of a bad habit of body, the jaundice, or the green sickness.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 30:7, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:7
“That day - i. e., the day of the capture of Babylon. It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble - Rather, and it is a time of trouble to Jacob, i. e., of anxiety to the Jews, for the usages of war were so brutal that they would be in danger when the enemy made their assault.”
3. (vv. 8-9)
a.I will break his yoke from off thy neck: The yoke language reverses chapter 27's yoke laid on the nations' necks: I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him. The freed nation's new service is named in the same sentence, they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them, a raising-up verb applied to David centuries after his death. The older writers read the raised David as the greater son of David, the same figure chapters 23 and 33 name the Branch and the Lord our Righteousness.
Jeremiah 30:8, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:8
“I will break his yoke - That is, the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar. Of him - Of Jacob, (Jer 30:7), viz., the then captive Jews.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:9, 3 voices
Jeremiah 30:9
“This is the David of whom the Gospel speaks: "It will be granted to us, that, liberated from our enemies, we may serve him without fear in holiness and justice all of our days." For, just as the first Adam and the second Adam are described according to the truth of the body, so also with David and the Lord and Savior. For, since everything that Mary gave to the Lord according to the flesh came from David, whatever was of the seed of David also took its origin and conception from the Holy Spirit.”
Jerome· written before 420· SIX BOOKS ON JEREMIAH 6:5.2-3patristic
Jeremiah 30:9
“But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their King - This must refer to the times of the Messiah and hence the Chaldee has, “They shall obey the Lord their God, וישת מאון למשיחה בר דוד veyishta meun limschicha bar David, and they shall obey the Messiah, the Son of David.” This is a very remarkable version; and shows that it was a version, not according to the letter, but according to their doctrine and their expectation.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:9
“But - Either this must be understood of the kingdom of Christ, under which the Jews that received him were made spiritually free: or there is a time yet to come, when this ancient people of God shall be restored to a farther civil liberty than they have enjoyed ever since the captivity of Babylon.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
4. (vv. 10-11)
a.fear thou not, O my servant Jacob: answers the trembling of verse 5 directly, the comfort naming the same fear it removes. The Lord's presence is qualified rather than a blank promise of ease: I will not make a full end of thee, but I will correct thee in measure, discipline distinguished from destruction. The bench generally reads the measured correction against the full end worked on the nations that scattered Israel, mercy and justice stated in the same verse.
Jeremiah 30:10, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:10
“These two verses are considered by some very similar in style to the last 27 chapters of Isaiah. The contrast, however, between the full end made with the pagan, and the certainty that Israel shall never so perish, is one of Jeremiah’s most common topics. Jer 30:11 In measure - See the Jer 10:24 note.”
Jeremiah 30:11, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:11
“Though I make a full end of all nations - Though the Persians destroy the nations whom they vanquish, yet they shall not destroy thee.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B. Thy Bruise Is Incurable: Yet I Will Restore Health to Thee
1. (vv. 12-17)
a.Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous: The wound is named without softening, thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous, no physician and no healing medicines, a diagnosis the prophet gives Judah's sin elsewhere in the book. The cause is stated plainly at verse 14, the multitude of thine iniquity, the lovers who forgot her named as the political alliances chapters 2 and 3 already condemned. Verse 17 answers the incurable wound with a promise only the Lord can keep, I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, reversing the very word used against her three verses earlier.
Jeremiah 30:12, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:12
“Thy bruise is incurable - אנוש anush, desperate, not incurable; for the cure is promised in Jer 30:17, I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:13, 2 voices
Jeremiah 30:13
“That thou mayest be bound up - Others put a stop after “cause,” and translate, For binding thy wound, healing plaster thou hast none.”
Jeremiah 30:13
“No medicine - The prophet's design was to convince them, that there was no present remedy, but patience, though their false prophets might promise a cure.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:14, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:14
“For the multitude ... - Or, Because of the multitude of thine iniquity, Because thy sins are strong. Judah’s lovers are the nations which once sought her alliance (see Jer 22:20; Jer 27:3).”
Jeremiah 30:15, 2 voices
Jeremiah 30:15
“Translate it: Why criest thou because of thy breaking? Because thy pain is grievous? Because of the multitude of thine iniquity, Because thy sins are strong, I have done these things unto thee.”
Jeremiah 30:15
“Why criest thou--as if God's severity was excessive. Thou hast no reason to complain, for thine affliction is just. Thy cry is too late, for the time of repentance and mercy is past [CALVIN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 30:16, 3 voices
Jeremiah 30:16
“Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured,.... Thus rendering the words, they are to be connected with Jer 30:10; and all between to be put into a parenthesis: but rather, in connection with the preceding words, they should be rendered "nevertheless", or "notwithstanding" (y); though they had sinned at so great a rate, and were so much afflicted and chastened by the Lord, yet their enemies should not go unpunished, and mercy in the issue would be showed to them.”
Jeremiah 30:16
“They that devour thee - The Chaldeans. Shall be devoured - By the Medes and Persians. All that prey upon thee will I give for a prey - The Assyrians were destroyed by the Babylonians; the Babylonians, by the Medes and Persians; the Egyptians and Persians were destroyed by the Greeks, under Alexander. All these nations are now extinct, but the Jews, as a distinct people, still exist.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:16
“Therefore--connected with Jer 30:13, because "There is none to plead thy cause . . . therefore" I will plead thy cause, and heal thy wound, by overwhelming thy foes. This fifteenth verse is inserted to amplify what was said at the close of Jer 30:14.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 30:17, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:17
“Outcast--as a wife put away by her husband (Isa 62:4, contrasted with Jer 30:12). Zion--alluding to its Hebrew meaning, "dryness"; "sought after" by none, as would be the case with an arid region (Isa 62:12). The extremity of the people, so far from being an obstacle to, will be the chosen opportunity of, God's grace.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
C. The City Rebuilt on Her Own Heap; a Ruler from the Midst
1. (vv. 18-22)
a.the city shall be builded upon her own heap: The rebuilding is described in concrete civic terms, the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof, ruins raised on their own footprint rather than replaced elsewhere. Thanksgiving, multiplied children, and a nobility drawn from Israel's own midst rather than an imposed governor all name a restoration in Israel's own land under Israel's own leadership. The unit closes with the covenant formula in its shortest form, ye shall be my people, and I will be your God, the same words that anchor the new covenant two chapters later.
Jeremiah 30:18, 3 voices
Jeremiah 30:18
“A type of these events previously occurred in Zerubbabel and Ezra, when the people returned and the city was begun to be built on its heights and religion observed in the temple, all of which are contained in Ezra's own book.”
Jerome· written before 420· SIX BOOKS ON JEREMIAH 6:9.3-6patristic
Jeremiah 30:18
“Thus saith the Lord, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob's tents,.... That is, the captives of Israel, the inhabitants of them; alluding to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, dwelling in tents, and to the Israelites in the wilderness; and fitly expresses the present unsettled state of the Jews: and have mercy on his dwelling places; by restoring Israel, or Jacob's posterity, to their dwelling places in Jerusalem, and other places rebuilt by them and for them.”
Jeremiah 30:18
“The city shall be builded upon her own heap - Be re-edified from its own ruins. See the book of Nehemiah, passim. And the palace shall remain - Meaning, the king’s house shall be restored; or, more probably, the temple shall be rebuilt; which was true, for after the Babylonish captivity it was rebuilt by Nehemiah, etc. By the tents, distinguished from the dwelling-places of Jacob, we may understand all the minor dispersions of the Jews, as well as those numerous synagogues found in large cities.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:20, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:20
Their children also - They shall have the education of their own children as formerly. And their congregation - Their religious assemblies. Shall be established - Being, in the latter days, incorporated with those “who serve the Lord their God, and worship the Messiah, the son of David.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:21, 4 voices
Jeremiah 30:21
“And their nobles shall be of themselves,.... Or, "his noble One" (d); Jacob's noble One, the Messiah, in whom all the promises centre; and whose incarnation and priesthood are the foundation of all the things above predicted. The Targum interprets these words of him; "their King shall be anointed from them, and their Messiah shall be revealed from the midst of them.'' And so it is applied to him in the Talmud (e), and in other writings of the Jews (f).”
Jeremiah 30:21
“Their nobles shall be of themselves - Strangers shall not rule over them; and - Their governor shall proceed from the midst of them - Both Nehemiah and Zerubbabel, their nobles and governors after the return from Babylon, were Jews.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 30:21
I MENTIONED in the reading that there is a very remarkable change of tone in the Book of Jeremiah, at the 30th chapter. You read on through the 29 chapters and you hear nothing but "a weeping and wailing," while the Prophet stands before you, girt with sackcloth, bidding Israel, "lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us." When you come to the middle of the 30th chapter, all is changed—you have left the dungeon for the pleasant meads and you hear "thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry."
Charles Spurgeon· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1673: “Who Is This?” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1882)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Jeremiah 30:21
“But it looks further, to Christ, to him as Mediator. Note, (1.) The proper work and office of Christ, as Mediator, is to draw near and approach unto God, not for himself only, but for us, and in our name and stead, as the high priest of our profession. The priests are said to draw nigh to God, Lev. x.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 23-24)
a.the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury: The chapter ends where chapter 23 already spoke in nearly the same words, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury, falling with pain upon the head of the wicked, judgment described as weather rather than argument. The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return until he have done it states the judgment as certain and unfinished business, with the closing line, in the latter days ye shall consider it, aiming the whole oracle forward. The commentators read the repetition from chapter 23 as deliberate, the same storm named twice because the point bears repeating.
Jeremiah 30:23, 2 voices
Jeremiah 30:23
“Compare the marginal reference. These verses would more appropriately be attached to the next chapter, for which they form a suitable introduction.”
Jeremiah 30:23
“Vengeance upon God's foes always accompanies manifestations of His grace to His people. continuing--literally, "sojourning," abiding constantly; appropriately here in the case of Babylon, which was to be permanently destroyed, substituted for "whirling itself about" ("grievous" in English Version) (see on Jer 23:19,20), where the temporary downfall of Judea is spoken of.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 30:24, 1 voice
Jeremiah 30:24
“The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return,.... This explains what is meant by the continuing whirlwind in Jer 30:23; until he hath done it; his whole will and pleasure; brought Babylon to ruin, and destroyed all the antichristian powers: and until he hath performed the intents of his heart; in a way of grace and mercy to his people, and in a way of wrath and vengeance on their enemies: in the latter day ye shall consider it; this prophecy, and understand it; and see it wholly and fully accomplished.”
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Jeremiah 30. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 11 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826); Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1673: “Who Is This?” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1882); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome; John Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations; John Gill; John Wesley and Matthew Henry.
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