All shall go off to captivity;
Thy spoilers for spoil shall be
And all that upon thee do prey, I give for prey.
For new flesh I shall bring up upon thee, 17
From thy wounds I shall heal thee;[623]
Outcast they called thee, O Ṣion,
Whom none seeketh after.]
The rest of the chapter is even less capable of being assigned to Jeremiah.
More of Jeremiah's own Oracles are readily recognised in Ch. XXXI. I leave to a later lecture the question of the authenticity of that on The New Covenant and of the immediately preceding [pg 297] verses;[624] while the verses which close the chapter are certainly not the Prophet's. But I take now the rest of the chapter, verses 1-28. The first of these may be editorial, the link by which the compiler has connected Chs. XXX and XXXI; yet there is nothing to prevent us from hearing in it Jeremiah himself.
XXXI. 1. At that time—Rede of the Lord—I shall be God to all the families[625] of Israel, and they shall be a people to Me.