Jeremiah · chapter 31 of 52
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Jeremiah 31 is the heart of the Book of Consolation. God promises to rebuild Israel with everlasting love, gather a remnant from the ends of the earth and comfort Rachel's weeping for her children. The center comes in verses 31-34: a new covenant, written on the heart, in which all will know the Lord and their sins will be forgiven.
This chapter is the best known of the Book of Consolation (chapters 30-33) and one of the most important in the entire Old Testament. God, who has announced judgment, now speaks of rebuilding, joy and a new covenant. His promise of the new covenant is quoted at length in the letter to the Hebrews, which connects it with the work of Jesus Christ.
The chapter begins with the promise that at that time the Lord will be the God of all the families of Israel. A people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness. The Lord tells Israel: I have loved you with an everlasting love, so I have continued my faithfulness to you. He will rebuild the virgin Israel, who will again take up her tambourines and plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria.
The Lord announces that he will bring back a remnant from the north and from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind, the lame and the woman in labor. They come weeping and with pleas, and he leads them on level paths, because he is a father to Israel and Ephraim is his firstborn. The Lord redeemed them from hands stronger than theirs, and there will be joy, songs, grain, wine and oil. But a voice of lament is heard in Ramah: Rachel weeps for her children and refuses to be comforted. The Lord tells her to stop weeping, because her children will come back from the land of the enemy. Ephraim admits his rebellion, and God answers that his heart yearns for him.
Later the Lord announces that each person will die for his own sin, and then comes the central promise: I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the one I made with their ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt. I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God and they will be my people. They will all know me, from the least to the greatest, and I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. The chapter ends with the guarantee of the order of the sun and moon, and with the promise that Jerusalem will be rebuilt for the Lord and never be torn down again.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
God says he loved his people with an everlasting love and so kept his faithfulness to them. His relationship with Israel does not rest on the merits of the people, who had failed, but on a love that does not change.
Rachel, the symbolic mother of the exiles, weeps in Ramah for her children who are gone. The New Testament takes up this image when Herod has the boys of Bethlehem killed, in Matthew 2:18; God's grief over his people does not go unanswered.
The Lord promises a new covenant, different from the one made at Sinai, which his people broke. This time he will put his law within people and write it on their hearts: obedience grows from the inside, by God's work, not only from an outside code.
All will know the Lord, and he will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. Hebrews 8 and 10 see this promise fulfilled in Christ, whose sacrifice offers complete forgiveness and direct access to God.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: As an everlasting love, by which he continues his faithfulness to his people. — Jeremiah 31:3
Answer: The blind, the lame and the woman in labor, along with a great company. — Jeremiah 31:8
Answer: Rachel, who refuses to be comforted because her children are no more. — Jeremiah 31:15
Answer: That whenever he speaks against him he remembers him still, and his heart yearns for him. — Jeremiah 31:20
Answer: With the house of Israel and the house of Judah. — Jeremiah 31:31
Answer: He will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. — Jeremiah 31:34
Jeremiah 31 reminds us that a relationship with God begins with his love, not our efforts. God's everlasting love is the foundation of hope for a defeated people, and for anyone who feels far away. In a small group you can pray with the words of Ephraim: admit rebellion and rest in the mercy of a Father whose heart yearns.
The new covenant touches how faith is lived. Christians believe that in Christ God writes his law on the heart by the Spirit, and this should show in an obedience that comes from within, not only from outside pressure. Ask yourselves whether your Christian life is a list of rules or a heart transformed by the forgiveness it has received.
Jeremiah 31 brings together God's everlasting love, the comfort of the exiles and the promise of a new covenant with total forgiveness. In chapter 32 that hope is tied to a concrete act: Jeremiah buys a field while Jerusalem is under siege.
The letter to the Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34 in Hebrews 8 and again in Hebrews 10, and teaches that Jesus Christ is the mediator of that better covenant, based on his sacrifice. At the Last Supper Jesus also speaks of his blood as the blood of the new covenant.
Rachel was Jacob's wife and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, and Ramah lay in the territory of Benjamin. Matthew quotes Jeremiah 31:15 when he tells of the killing of the boys of Bethlehem, to show that Israel's grief is repeated and that God answers it with comfort.
That God's will will not be only an outside text the people must keep, but something God himself engraves within them, giving both the desire and the ability to obey. Christians connect it with the work of the Holy Spirit.