Ver. 6. "And in His days Judah is endowed with salvation, and Israel dwelleth safely; and this is the name whereby they shall call him: The Lord our righteousness."
It has already been pointed out that the first words here look back to David. That which Jeremiah here expresses by several words, Zechariah expresses more briefly, by calling the Sprout of David צדיק ונושע "righteous, and protected by God." It makes no difference that, in that passage, the salvation, the inseparable concomitant of righteousness, is ascribed to the King, its possessor; while, here, it is ascribed to the people. For, in that passage, too, it is for his subjects that salvation is attributed to the King who comes for Zion, just as he is righteous for Zion also. Israel must here be taken either in the restricted sense, or in the widest, either as the ten tribes alone, or as the ten tribes along with Judah. It is a favourite thought of Jeremiah, which recurs in all his Messianic prophecies, that the ten tribes are to partake in the future prosperity and salvation. He has a true tenderness for Israel; his bowels roar when he remembers them, who were already, for so long a time, forsaken and rejected. His lively hope for Israel is a great testimony of his lively faith. For, in the case of Israel, the visible state of things afforded still less ground for hope than in the case of Judah. There is here an allusion to Deut. xxxiii. 28: ("And He thrusteth out thine enemy from before thee, and saith: Destroy") "And Israel dwelleth in safety (וישכן ישראל בטח), alone, Jacob looketh upon a land of corn and wine, and his heavens drop dew." There can be the less doubt of the existence of this allusion, that this expression occurs, besides in Deuteronomy, and in the verse under consideration, only once more in chap. xxxiii. 16,--that a reference to the majestic close of the blessing of Moses, which certainly was in the hearts and mouths of all the pious, was very natural, and that the word תושע has there its analogy in ver. 29: "Happy art thou, O Israel, who is like unto thee, a people saved (נֹושַׁע) by the Lord, the shield of thy help, thy proud sword; and thine enemies flatter thee, and thou treadest upon their high places." This glorious destination of the covenant-people, which, hitherto, had been so imperfectly only realized (most perfectly under David, compare 2 Sam. viii. 6, 14), shall, under the reign of the Messiah, be carried out in such a manner that idea and reality shall fully coincide. The covenant-people is to appear in its full dignity.--In the second hemistich of the verse, the reading requires first to be established. Instead of the reading יִקְרְאוֹ which is found in the text, and which is the third pers. Sing. with the Suffix, several MSS. (compare De Rossi), have the third pers. Plur. יִקְרְאוּ. Several controversial writers, such as Raim. Martini, Pug. Fid. p. 517, and Galatinus, iii. 9, p. 126, (The Jews of our time assert that here Jeremiah did not say "they shall call," יִקְרְאוּ, as we read it, but "he shall call him," יִקְרְאוֹ; and they declare this to be the sense: "This is the name of Him who shall call him, viz., the Messiah: Our righteous God,") declare the latter to be unconditionally correct, and assert that the other had originated from an intentional Jewish corruption, got up for the purpose of setting aside the divinity of the Messiah, which, to them, was so offensive. This allegation, however, is certainly unfounded. It is true, that some Jewish interpreters availed themselves of the reading יִקְרְאוֹ for the purpose stated. Thus Rabbi Saadias Haggaon, according to Abenezra and Manasseh Ben Israel, who explain: "And this is the name by which the Lord will call him: Our righteousness." But it by no means follows from this, that they invented the reading; it may have existed, and they only connected their perversion with it. That the latter was indeed the case, appears from the circumstance that by far the greater number of Jewish interpreters and controversialists rejected this perversion, because it was in opposition to the accents (compare especially Abenezra and Norzi on the passage), and acknowledged יהוה צדקנו to be the name of the Messiah. The reading יִקְרְאוּ must be unconditionally rejected, because it has by far the smallest external authority in its favour. It is true, that its supporters (comp. especially Schulze, vollst. Critik der gewöhnlichen Bibelausgaben, S. 321) have endeavoured to make up for its deficiency in manuscript authority, by appealing to the authority of the ancient translators, all of whom, with the sole exception of the Alexandrian version, according to them, express it. But this assertion is entirely without foundation. The vocabunt eum of Jonathan and the Vulgate is the correct translation of יִקְרְאוֹ. And when Jerome, in opposition to the Alex., remarks that, according to the Hebrew, the translation ought to be: Nomen ejus vocabunt, he does not contend against their use of the Singular per se, but only against their arbitrarily supplying "Jehovah" as the subject; against their explaining "The Lord shall call," instead of "one" shall call. The manner in which the false reading יִקְרְאוּ first arose, is clearly seen from the reasons by which its later defenders endeavour to support it; compare especially Schulze l. c. The chief argument is the erroneous supposition that the third Plur. only could be used impersonally. To this was farther added the use of the rarer Suffix וֹ instead of the common ־ֵהוּ--But from internal reasons, too, the reading יִקְרְאוּ is objectionable; the designation of the object of calling cannot be omitted.--There cannot be any doubt that we are not allowed to refer the Suffix in יִקְרְאוֹ to Israel, (Ewald: "And this is their name by which they call them,") but to the Messiah. For it is only in this case, that those who call, viz., Judah or Israel, the Members of the Church, are indirectly mentioned in the preceding words; and the Messiah is, in both verses, the chief person to whom all the other clauses refer. At all events, the then could not, in that case, have been omitted, as in this context every thing depends upon the connection of the salvation with the person of the King; and this connection must be clearly and distinctly expressed. We now come to יהוה צדקנו. Great difference of opinion prevails as to the explanation of these words. The better portion of the Jewish interpreters, indeed, likewise consider them as names of the Messiah, but not in such a manner that He is called "Jehovah," and then, in apposition to it, "Our righteousness," but rather in such a manner that יהוה צדקנו is an abbreviation of the whole sentence. Thus the Chaldean, who thus paraphrases: "And this is the name by which they shall call him: Righteousness will be bestowed upon us from the face of the Lord;" Kimchi, "Israel shall call the Messiah by this name: The Lord our righteousness, because at His time, the righteousness of the Lord will be to us firm, continuous, everlasting;" the ספר עקרים (in Le Moyne, p. 20): "Scripture calls the name of the Messiah: The Lord our righteousness, because He is the Mediator of God, and we obtain the righteousness of God by His ministry." Besides to chap. xxxiii. 16, they refer to passages such as Exod. xvii. 15, where Moses calls the altar "Jehovah my banner;" to Gen. xxxiii. 20, where Jacob calls it אל אלהי ישראל. Grotius follows these expositors, only that he dilutes the sense still more. The other Christian expositors, (the Vulgate excludes every other interpretation, even by its translation: Dominus justus noster) on the contrary, contend with all their might for the opinion, that the Messiah is here called Jehovah, and hence must be truly God. That which Dassov i. h. 1. remarks: "Since then the Messiah is called Jehovah, we have firm ground for inferring, that He is truly God, inasmuch as that name is peculiar and essential to the true God," is the argument common to all of them. Le Moyne wrote in defence of this explanation a whole book, which we have already quoted, but from which little is to be learned. Even Calvin, who elsewhere sometimes erred from an exaggerated dread of doctrinal prejudice, decidedly adopts it. He remarks: "Those who judge without prejudice and bitterness, easily see that that name belongs to Christ, in so far as He is God, just as the name of the Son of David is assigned to Him in reference to His human nature. To all those who are just and unprejudiced, it will be clear that Christ is here distinguished by a twofold attribute; so that the Prophet commends Him to us, both as regards the glory of His deity, and his true human nature." By righteousness he, too, understands justification through the merits of Christ, "for Christ is not righteous for himself, but received righteousness in order to communicate it to us" (1 Cor. i. 30). We have the following observations to make in reference to this exposition. 1. The principal mistake in it is this, that it has been overlooked that the Prophet here expresses the nature of the Messiah and of His time in the form of a nomen proprium. If the words were thus: "And this is Jehovah our righteousness," we should be fully entitled to take Jehovah as a personal designation of the Messiah. But in reference to a name, it is as common, as it is natural, to take from a whole sentence the principal words only, and to leave it to the reader or hearer to supply the rest. In the case of all naming, brevity is unavoidable, as is proved by the usual abbreviation of even those proper names which consist of one word only. The two cases mentioned by Kimchi will serve as instances. "Jehovah my Banner" is a concise expression for: "This altar is consecrated to Jehovah my Banner;" אל אלהי ישראל for: "This altar belongs to the Almighty, the God of Israel." A number of other instances might easily be quoted; one need only compare, in Hiller's and Simonis' Onomastica, the names which are compounded with Jehovah. Thus, e.g., Jehoshua, i.e., Jehovah salvation, is a concise expression for: Jehovah will grant me salvation; Jehoram, i.e., Jehovah altus, for: I am consecrated to the exalted God of Israel. Most perfectly analogous, however, is the name Zedekiah, i.e., the righteousness of the Lord, for: He under whose reign the Lord will grant righteousness to His people. This name, moreover, seems to refer directly to the prophecy before us. Just as Eliakim, by changing his name into Jehoiakim, intended to represent himself as he in whom the prophecy in 2 Sam. vii. would be fulfilled; so he who was formerly called Mattaniah changed, at the instance of Nebuchadnezzar (who had, indeed, no other object in view than that, as a sign of his supremacy, his name should be different from that by which he was formerly called, and who left the choice of the name to Mattaniah himself), his name into Zedekiah, imagining that in a manner so easy, he would become the Jehovah Zidkenu announced by Jeremiah, and longed for by the people. 2. The preceding argument only showed that there is nothing opposed to the exposition: He by whom and under whom Jehovah will be our righteousness. A positive proof, however, in favour of it is offered by the parallel passage, chap. xxxiii. 15, 16: "In those days and at that time will I cause a righteous Branch to grow up unto David; and He worketh justice and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely, and this is the name which they shall give to her: Jehovah our righteousness." Here Jehovah Zidkenu by no means appears as the name of the Messiah, but as that of Jerusalem in the Messianic time. In vain are all the attempts which have been made to set aside this troublesome argument. They only serve to show, that it cannot be invalidated. Le Moyne, "in order that no way of escape may be left to the enemies," brings forward, p. 298 ff., five different expedients among which the reader may choose. But their very difference is a plain sign of arbitrariness; and that appears still more clearly, when we begin to examine them individually. Several interpreters assume an enallage generis לה = לו, "and thus shall they call him." Le Moyne thinks that we need have no difficulty in assuming such an enallage. Others explain: "And he who shall call, i.e., invite her, is Jehovah our righteousness." A simple reference to the passage before us is decisive against it; the parallelism of the two passages is too close to admit of יקרא in the second passage being understood in a sense altogether different. By the same argument, the explanations by Hottinger (Thesaur. Philolog. p. 17l), and Dassov: "This shall come to pass when the Lord, the Lord our righteousness, shall call her," are also refuted, quite apart from the consideration, that אשר cannot by any means signify when. The most recent defender of the old orthodox view, Schmieder, cuts the knot by simply severing our passage from chap. xxxiii. 16–3. The ancient explanation, which refers צדקנו, "our righteousness," to the remission of sins, does not even correctly understand this word. It is true that the remission of sins is often represented as one of the chief blessings of the Messianic time; but here it is out of place. According to the context, it is actual justification, i.e., salvation according to another mode of viewing it, which is here spoken of (compare remarks on Mal. iii. 20). Righteousness in this sense implies, of course, the forgiveness of sins; but, besides, the righteousness of life is comprehended in it. Righteousness stands here in parallelism with salvation, and the order and progress is this: righteousness of the king, righteousness of the subjects, then salvation and righteousness as a reward from God, To this argument may still be added the contrast to the former time. Connected with the unrighteousness of the kings was that of the people; and hence it was that the country was deprived of salvation, and smitten by the divine judgments. That which Jeremiah comprehends in the name Jehovah Zidkenu, Ezekiel, in the parallel passage, chap. xxxiv. 25-31, farther carries out and expands. The Lord enters into a covenant of peace with them; rich blessing is bestowed upon them; He breaks their yoke and delivers them from servitude; they do not become a prey to the Gentiles.--Schmieder has objected, that the name would be without meaning for the promised King, unless the name Jehovah belonged to him. But the King, by being called Jehovah Zidkenu, is designated as the channel, through which the divine blessings flow upon the Church, as the Mediator of Salvation, as the Saviour. We must not, however, omit to remark that this ancient explanation was wrong only in endeavouring to draw out from the word that which, no doubt, is contained in the matter itself No one born of a woman is righteous, in the full sense of the word; and if there be anything wanting in the personal righteousness of the King, the working of justice and righteousness, too, will at once be deficient; and salvation and righteousness are not granted in their full extent from above. To no one among all the former kings did the attribute צדיק belong in a higher degree than to David; and yet in how imperfect a degree did even he possess it! The calamity which, by this imperfection, was inflicted upon the people, is, e.g., seen in the numbering of the people. And it was not only the will to work justice and righteousness which was imperfect, but the power also was imperfect, and the knowledge limited. He only who truly rules as a king, and is truly wise (compare the words וּמָלַךְ מֶלֶךְ וְהִשְׂכִּיל) can come up to, and realize the idea, after which David was striving in vain. All the three offices of Christ, the royal no less than the prophetic and priestly, imply His divinity; and the conviction that, in the way hitherto pursued, nothing was to be effected; that it was only by the divine entering into the earthly, that such splendid promises could be fulfilled,--this conviction surely must have been plain to a Jeremiah, whose fundamental sentiment is, "all flesh is grass," and who lived at a time which, more than any other, was fitted to cure that Pelagianism which always seeks to gather grapes from thorns. If then, farther, we keep in mind that Jeremiah had before him the clear announcements of the former prophets, as regards the divinity of the Messiah (compare remarks on Mic. v. 1; Is. ix. 5), we can account for the fact, that he does not expressly speak of it, only because it was not suitable in this context, in which only the fact itself comes into consideration, but not the particular way.
Ver. 7. "Wherefore, behold days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say: As the Lord liveth who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; ver. 8, but: As the Lord liveth, who brought up, and who led the seed of the house of Israel out of the North country, and from all the countries whither I have driven them; and they dwell in their land."
The sense is this: The future prosperity and salvation shall by far outshine the greatest deliverance and salvation of the Past. Calvin remarks: "If the first deliverance be valued by itself, it will be worthy of everlasting remembrance; but if it be compared with the second deliverance, it will almost vanish;" compare, besides chap. xvi. 14, 15, where the verses now under consideration already occurred almost verbatim (Jeremiah is fond of such repetitions, which are any thing but vain repetitions; and this fondness forms one of his peculiarities); chap. iii. 16, where, in the same sense, it is said of the Ark of the Covenant that it shall be forgotten in future; Is. xliii. 18, 19, lxv. 17.--חי־יהוה "living (is) Jehovah," for: "As Jehovah liveth." It is quite natural that, when God is invoked as a witness and judge, He should be designated as the living one; and it is as natural that, on such an occasion, the greatest sign of life which He gave should be pointed to. But that, under the Old Testament dispensation, was the deliverance from Egypt, the strongest and most impressive of all those deeds by which the delusion was dissipated, that God was walking upon the vault of heaven, and did not judge through the clouds. In future, a still stronger manifestation of life is to take place. Hence the formula of the oath is altogether general; the deliverance from Egypt comes into consideration as a manifestation of life, and not as an act of grace. This was overlooked by Calvin when he remarked: "Whensoever they saw themselves so oppressed, that they did not see any other end to their evils than in the grace of God, they said that the same God, who, in former times, had been the deliverer of His people, was still living, and His power undiminished."
[CHAP. XXXI. 31-40.]
The 30th and 31st chapters may rightly be called the grand hymn of Israel's deliverance. They are connected into one whole, not only a material, but also by a formal unity; so that we must indeed wonder at views such as those of Venema and Rosenmüller, who assume that the section is composed of fragments loosely connected, and written at different times; but still more at the views of Movers and Hitzig, who assert that a whole number of strange interpolations had been introduced into the text; compare Küper, Jerem. S. 170 ff.
With respect to the time of the composition, we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the circumstance that, as a rule, Judah appears no less that Israel, already far away from the land of the Lord, in captivity. The Prophet, taking his stand in the time when the catastrophe has already taken place, speaks from an ideal Present. The fact that the destruction of Jerusalem was indeed imminent, and immediately in view, but had not yet taken place, becomes probable even from the inscriptions in chap. xxxii. and xxxiii., according to which these two chapters, which are so closely related to the two before us, belong to the tenth year of Zedekiah, when Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans. This is rendered certain by chap. xxx. 5-7, where the final catastrophe upon the covenant-people, which belongs to the time of Jeremiah, is represented as still impending. Hitherto the threatening had prevailed in the predictions of the Prophet; but now, in the view of their fulfilment, when the thunders of the judgment were already heard from the heavens, the promise flows in full streams. The false prophets had prophesied prosperity and salvation, at a time when, to the human eye, there was no. cause for fear; but Jeremiah just steps forth to announce salvation, at a time when all human hope had vanished.
The Prophet begins, in chap. xxx., with the promise of salvation for all Israel; and after a detailed description, he comprehends and sums it up, in ver. 22, in the words, brief but infinitely rich and comprehensive: "And ye shall be my people and I will be your God."[1] The majestic close of the promise for the true Israel is, in vers. 23, 24, formed by the threatening against those who are Israel in appearance only,--analogous to the words of Isaiah: "There is no peace to the wicked." Let them not, in their foolish delusion, seize the promise for themselves. The time of the highest blessing for the godly, and for those who are willing to become godly, the אחרית הימים. will be for them, at the same time, a time of the highest curse. The climax of the manifestation of grace has the climax of the manifestation of justice as its inseparable companion. "Behold the storm of the Lord, glowing fire, goeth forth, a continuing storm, on the head of the wicked it shall remain. The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return, until He have done, and until He have performed the intents of His heart; at the end of days ye shall consider it." Formerly, in chap. xxiii. 19, 20, in a threatening prophecy which referred to the exile, the Prophet had uttered the same words. By their verbal repetition, he intimates that the matter was not by any means settled with the exile; that the latter must not be considered as the absolute and final punishment for the sins of the whole nation, but that, as truly as God is Jehovah, so surely His words will revive, as often as the circumstances again exist, to which they originally referred.
The more specific the consolation is, the more impressive is it, and the more does it reach the heart. After having announced salvation, therefore, to all Israel, the Prophet now proceeds to the consolation for the two divisions of Israel. He begins with Israel in the restricted sense--the ten tribes (chap. xxxi. 1–22), and with them he continues longest, because, when looking to the outward appearance, they seemed to be lost beyond all hope of recovery, to be for ever rejected by the Lord. The thought, that we have here an original and independent announcement of salvation for Israel, is set aside even by the relation of ver. 1 to ver. 22 of the preceding chapter. For it is to this verse that the Prophet immediately connects his discourse; vers. 23 and 24 are only a parenthetical remark, an Odi profanum vulgus et arceo, addressed to those to whom the promise did not belong. Upon the words: "You shall be my people, and I will be your God," follow in an inverted order, the words: "At that time, saith the Lord, I will (specially) be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people." Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, weeping over her sons, vers. 15–17, is so much the more suited to represent Israel, that the tribe of Benjamin also, as to its principal portion, belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes; compare my commentary on Ps. lxxx. Upon Israel there follows, in vers. 23–26, Judah. The announcement closes in ver. 26 with the words so often misunderstood: "Upon this I awaked, and I beheld, and my sleep was sweet unto me." The Prophet has lost sight of the Present; like a sleeping man, he is not susceptible of its impressions, compare remarks on Zech. iv. 1. Then he awakes for a moment from his sweet dream (an allusion to Prov. iii. 24), which, however, is not, like ordinary dreams, without foundation. He looks around; every thing is dark, dreary, and cold; nowhere is there consolation for the weary soul. "Ah," he exclaims, "I have sweetly dreamed,"--and immediately the hand of the Lord again seizes him, and carries him away from the scenes of the Present.
There is not by any means a different salvation destined for Israel and Judah; it is one salvation to be partaken of by both, who are in future to be re-united into one covenant-people, into a nation of brethren. From the parts, therefore, the description returns, in vers. 27–40, to the whole from which it had proceeded, and is thus completely rounded off, especially by the circumstance that, just in this close, there is contained the crown of the promises, the substance and centre of the declaration recurring here in ver. 33: "And I will be their God, and they shall be my people."