Jeremiah 31:27-40 - Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

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The Threefold Predictions Concerning ‘The Days That Are Coming' (Jeremiah 31:27-40).

We now come to a threefold prediction concerning the coming days, backed up by absolute assurances of their fulfilment.

· The days are coming when the people of Israel and Judah will be firmly established in the land, with full responsibility for their own individual behaviour (Jeremiah 31:27-30).

· The days are coming when YHWH will make with them a new and better covenant, a covenant written in their hearts so that all will know Him from the least to the greatest (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

· The days are coming when Jerusalem and its surrounds will be established in total purity, with all that is unclean done away so that it will abide for ever as the habitation of God among His people (Jeremiah 31:38-40).

This is a remarkable potted history of what the future would hold. Initially we have the settlement and establishment in the land which took place during the inter-testamental period. Secondly we have the giving of a new covenant in the coming of Jesus Christ to die for our sins and offer us new life in the Spirit, which would cause the law to be written in our hearts (see 2 Corinthians 3:6-18; Hebrews 8:6-13). Thirdly we have the establishment of a new and everlastingly perfect Jerusalem (Galatians 4:24-30; Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 21:2 to Revelation 22:5) something that could never happen on this earth. It will require a new Heaven and a new earth.

The concept of the new Heaven and the new earth is an essential one for Biblical exegesis. It is the only way in which the ancient promises, with their emphasis in ‘forever-ness' could be fulfilled. God's people will there eternally enjoy ‘the land given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' and will enjoy the new Jerusalem, but it will only be in that other world, the heavenly (see Hebrews 11:10-14).

Related Commentaries of Jeremiah 31:27

Jeremiah 31:27-40

27 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.

28 And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD.

29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.

31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

35 Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:

36 If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.

37 Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.

38 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner.

39 And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb, and shall compass about to Goath.

40 And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the LORD; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever.