©Laura Haverkamp
Chapter 30:10-24 (ESV) - “Then fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the LORD,
nor be dismayed, O Israel;
for behold, I will save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and none shall make him afraid.
For I am with you to save you,
declares the LORD;
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.
I will discipline you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished.
“For thus says the LORD:
Your hurt is incurable,
and your wound is grievous.
There is none to uphold your cause,
no medicine for your wound,
no healing for you.
All your lovers have forgotten you;
they care nothing for you;
for I have dealt you the blow of an enemy,
the punishment of a merciless foe,
because your guilt is great,
because your sins are flagrant.
Why do you cry out over your hurt?
Your pain is incurable.
Because your guilt is great,
because your sins are flagrant,
I have done these things to you.
Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured,
and all your foes, every one of them, shall go into captivity;
those who plunder you shall be plundered,
and all who prey on you I will make a prey.
For I will restore health to you,
and your wounds I will heal,
declares the LORD,
because they have called you an outcast:
‘It is Zion, for whom no one cares!’
“Thus says the LORD:
Behold, I will restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob
and have compassion on his dwellings;
the city shall be rebuilt on its mound,
and the palace shall stand where it used to be.
Out of them shall come songs of thanksgiving,
and the voices of those who celebrate.
I will multiply them, and they shall not be few;
I will make them honored, and they shall not be small.
Their children shall be as they were of old,
and their congregation shall be established before me,
and I will punish all who oppress them.
Their prince shall be one of themselves;
their ruler shall come out from their midst;
I will make him draw near, and he shall approach me,
for who would dare of himself to approach me?
declares the LORD.
And you shall be my people,
and I will be your God.”
Behold the storm of the LORD!
Wrath has gone forth,
a whirling tempest;
it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
The fierce anger of the LORD will not turn back
until he has executed and accomplished
the intentions of his mind.
In the latter days you will understand this.
Question to consider: When was the fierce anger of the LORD executed and accomplished?
In every generation, the LORD had kept a remnant for Himself— those who would not bow the knee to Baal or sacrifice their sons in the fire. While there were still some bad figs among the good ones in exile, those who loved the LORD listened to His voice and were spared from the destruction that came upon the city and temple.
I would argue that the assurances given in today’s passage were directed toward the good figs, for the LORD spared them from judgment and disciplined them like dearly loved children. The writer of Hebrews wrote, “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” (Hebrews 12:7)
Those among the Jews to whom the LORD referred as bad figs, there was only judgment. They were not God’s people because they ignored His word and bent the knee to Baal. The apostle Paul affirmed this idea in his letter to the church at Rome. “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” (Romans 9:6-8)
The purpose of driving Israel into exile was that they would experience the LORD’s discipline so that they could one day be restored to the land. If you went through my study of Zechariah 1:7-17, when the seventy years of exile were complete, the LORD gave Zechariah a vision in which He sent out His horsemen to the four corners of the world to announce that their time of judgment had been fulfilled, and they could return to the land in peace.
In this announcement of restoration to Jeremiah, the LORD used the covenantal language, “you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” This was the aim for each of the covenants the LORD established throughout history. While we have failed to keep covenant with the LORD by our own efforts, Christ has paid for our failures and offers reconciliation to all who are clothed in His righteousness.
There are those today who believe that these promises apply to the modern-day land of Israel that was formed in 1948, and that Christians must support the modern day Jewish state and regard them as the apple of God’s eye. I would argue that the holy line culminated in Christ who was the righteous branch of David that was promised to reign forever on his throne. The only way to receive these promised blessings is to be found in Him. The “fierce anger of the LORD” was poured out on Christ, and the remnant of Jews who received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost were those of the “latter days” who understood this. I believe the latter days in this passage referred to the generation in which the church was established, and the earthly temple was destroyed.
Dear heavenly Father, thank You for sending Christ to bear Your fierce anger against our sin. Help us to be restored in Him and point others to do the same regardless of their ethnic origin or past transgressions. Amen.