In Coming Days YHWH Will Re-establish The Whole Of Jerusalem As Holy To Him (Jeremiah 31:38-40).
The first thing that was to happen ‘in coming days' was the restoration of YHWH's people in the land, where they would be planted and built up (Jeremiah 31:27-30). The second thing to happen was YHWH's giving of a new law written in the heart, something which while we can experience it in part now awaits final fulfilment in the everlasting kingdom (Jeremiah 31:31-34). The third is now described and it is the establishing of a new Jerusalem which is completely holy to YHWH. This prophecy too would find its gradual completion. It would be partly fulfilled in the days of Haggai, Zechariah and Nehemiah as a city and Temple were built which were dedicated to YHWH (with the result that it began to be seen as ‘the holy city' - Nehemiah 11:1; Nehemiah 11:18; Isaiah 52:1; Daniel 9:24). It will be even more fully fulfilled in YHWH's new Temple on earth consisting of His people (2 Corinthians 6:16-18), and His new Temple in Heaven to which His earthly people continue to look as they come to Him in prayer (Hebrews 10:19-25), which are both part of the new Jerusalem in Heaven (Galatians 4:22-30; Hebrews 12:22), and it will find its final fulfilment in the new Jerusalem which consists of those who enter His everlasting kingdom to dwell in the very presence of God for ever. Indeed it is only this last Jerusalem that can be wholly pure and last for ever (Revelation 21:1 to Revelation 22:5). The detailed description, apart from the full purification of the Valley of Hinnom which remained as a rubbish dump, may mainly have in mind the initial restoration of Jerusalem, and is described in 6th century BC terms, but the final concept has in mind the eternal future.
Sitting here in the twenty first century we look back over a long period of history since Jeremiah's day, and try to fit his prophecy into what has happened since. But that was not Jeremiah's aim or insight. He was not trying to give a detailed description of the future of Jerusalem as such. He was trying to provide assurance to the people of the future rebuilding of Jerusalem (something which in the event would happen a number of times), but in the end picturing an ideal Jerusalem where God would dwell with His people in total perfection, expressed by him in terms of the purifying of the ‘uncleannest' part of the Jerusalem area which had the vilest of reputations. One day, he was saying, there would be the perfect setting for the people of God, a setting which would be free of any kind of ‘uncleanness'. And in vision he, as it were, sees its rebuilding.
“Behold, the days are coming,
The word of YHWH,
That the city will be built to YHWH,
From the tower of Hananel,
To the Corner Gate,
And the measuring line will go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb,
And will turn about unto Goah.
And the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes,
And all the fields (terraces) to the brook Kidron,
To the corner of the horse gate toward the east,
Will be holy to YHWH,
It will not be plucked up,
Nor thrown down any more for ever.
The point of this prophecy is not simply that an ancient city will be rebuilt after its previous destruction. That happened to many a city. The point is rather that Jerusalem, with all that it symbolised to the faithful in Israel, would one day be re-established as the place where they could meet with YHWH and as an ideal city (it would be ‘holy' throughout, a literal impossibility if it contained earthly people), one which would be there everlastingly. And that could only therefore in the end indicate that it must be heavenly, for only what is heavenly can be wholly pure and can survive for ever. This description is thus a symbol of a greater reality. In the future there would come a time when for evermore the people of God would dwell in a place where they were separated to YHWH. No more would His people see themselves as cut off from YHWH, for He would be in their midst. It is similar to what Ezekiel's Temple and city symbolised, the ideal fulfilment (Ezekiel 40 onwards). The literal city and Temple which would be rebuilt there, as a partial fulfilment of this prophecy (by Zerubbabel and Nehemiah), would certainly again be destroyed (Matthew 23:37-38; Mark 13:2), (as, for those who believe in a millennial age, would any supposed millennial city if it ever exists, as Revelation 20:11 makes clear) but the city in mind here, along with its Temple, would be ‘raised up' again in the resurrection of Jesus Christ to exist everlastingly (John 2:19 - note the connection of the two themes). The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb will dwell in the City and be its Temple (Revelation 21:22).
Note that the description is of ‘the building of the city to YHWH'. It is not for the glory of a king, or of a people. It is for the glory of YHWH. And the aim is for it to be ‘holy to YHWH' (compare how the High Priest wore the same words ‘Holy to YHWH' on his tiara, although there it was symbolic). It is to be set apart wholly to Him, having been cleansed throughout from all sources of defilement, something impossible for a literal city where the activities of the people must constantly result in its being affected by ‘uncleanness' (which is why even initially the people were not allowed into the Sanctuary and the priests only after purification). We can compare the vivid picture in Isaiah 4. It is the ideas that we are to grasp and not the detail. They are of a place where all is pleasing to God, and watched over by God. Any building of the city which took place prior to this would therefore have this final end in view.
But in the initial physical phase it was to be built according to precise specifications, and it is quite clear that in vision Jeremiah sees a new Jerusalem arising out of the ashes of the old, based mainly on what he knows of that city. Initially it was to be very much a city on earth. Thus he ‘sees' the rebuilding as commencing at the Tower of Hananel, a tower in the north wall of the city (Nehemiah 3:1; Nehemiah 12:39) and moving on from there to the Corner Gate at the north-west corner (2Ki 14:13; 2 Chronicles 26:9; Zechariah 14:10; Nehemiah 3:24; Nehemiah 3:32). Then he ‘watches' as the measuring line goes on to the hill Garob, presumably on the westward side, from the Corner Gate. The hill Garob (the lepers' hill, compare for the root Leviticus 21:20; Leviticus 22:22, and therefore itself an unclean place) is otherwise unknown, but the idea of the measuring line was of God's activity in restoration (see Zechariah 2:1-5). The idea of incorporation of the leper area into the new Jerusalem is significant. All will be made holy. He ‘saw' it then ‘turn about unto Goah', again otherwise unknown (although the Aramaic Targum boldly paraphrases as ‘the pool of the heifers' on the basis of a root connection with the verb for the lowing of heifers), but presumably indicating south-westward, leading on to the area of the Valley of Hinnom to the south-east, and the horse gate in the south east corner. The east would be determined by the Kidron valley. Jeremiah's description of ‘the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the sacrificial ashes, and all the countryside (fields) to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east', brings out the significance of what is happening. All the unclean parts were to be cleansed and incorporated within the city, and the whole was to be ‘holy to YHWH'. The valley described was the site which was seen as the epitome of ‘uncleanness' (cemeteries were all ‘unclean' being connected with death, but ‘the valley of the dead bodies' was probably identical with the Ugaritic ‘Field of Moth (Death)' which was where the bodies of children sacrificed to Moloch were buried). It has already been vividly described as an area of judgment (compare Jeremiah 7:30-33; Jeremiah 19:4-9), and was also where the city rubbish dump was found. But he ‘saw' all this area as now having been purified. Indeed he ‘saw' the whole new city as an ‘ideal city', made holy to YHWH for ever. (It has to be an ‘ideal', for no ordinary city could do without a place for refuse, or be completely holy). The word translated ‘fields' (seremoth) is found only here in the Old Testament and must signify something like fields or terraced land.
And the consequence of the whole area of the city being ‘made holy' is that it will be established for ever as God's own possession. As already stated this could not in the end be an earthly city, for no earthly city, not even Jerusalem, could be eternal, or eternally holy. It is in the end indicating the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2-3), in the new Heaven and the new earth, which will go on for ever (Revelation 21:1). So the emphasis is on the fact that God's presence with them and watch over them would one day become an eternal reality, something vividly brought home in a different way in Revelation 21-22. But it could only be brought home to the people at that time, (who had no concept of a heavenly kingdom for mortal man), by describing it in terms of bricks and mortar. In those days heavenly kingdoms were for the gods (and unlike the new Heaven and the new earth, even they were generally made of bricks and mortar).
The ‘coming days' will thus result in the rebuilding and replanting of His people; will for these same people have the consequence of a new obedient heart within; and will result in the final perfect state of total holiness to YHWH in the new Jerusalem, which will occur in the new Heaven and the new earth.