Hope to the Weary
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Key Verse: “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.” Selected Scripture: |
THE PREVIOUS LESSONS have been about the despair and hopelessness of the nation of Israel because of injustice and greed. They went into captivity around 606 BC, when invaded by the king of Babylon. Chapters thirty through thirty-three of Jeremiah deal with consolation. Hope is firmly set in the context of the people’s distress.
Verse three of chapter thirty begins by telling the nation they would be brought out of captivity, brought back to the land that was given to their fathers and that they would possess the land. This was in stark contrast to the trembling and fear they had experienced. Like a woman in childbirth, all faces would be pale. This time of trouble is described as “Jacob’s trouble” but that he would be “saved out of it.”—Jer. 30:7
They were not told when the nation would be freed from their tormentors, but hope was held out that they would be saved from afar, and their seed from the land of captivity. “Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid.” (vs. 10) God would first punish them for their iniquities.—Jer. 30:11
When would Israel be saved and return and be at rest? “They shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.” (Jer. 30:9) David had come and was one of Israel’s greatest of kings. But David died without the fulfillment of the promise. Who, then, was the antitypical David, Israel’s true king? We read, “Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.”—Acts 2:29,30
It would be at the Second Advent of Christ when the true hope of Israel would be realized. After Christ was born, Israel’s hopes were revived but they never accepted Jesus as their Messiah. Their nation was cast off, and their hopes dashed, from becoming a nation of kings and priests. (Exod. 19:6; Matt. 23:37,38) God turned to the Gentiles and gave them the opportunity of becoming the seed blessing all nations of earth. (Gen. 22:18) Was Israel never to live at peace, be at rest? We are told, “All Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.”—Rom. 11:26,27
Soon the time will come when Christ and his church, the true seed of Abraham, will take away Israel’s sins. They have been regathered in their land, but they still do not have rest or peace. Suicide bonbings have disrupted their normal living. Even if this should be controlled, Ezekiel 38 and 39 tell of a final invasion by nations of the north. It is then that God will fight for them as in days of old. This will open the eyes of Israel and all nations to the recognition of God and his power.—Ezek. 39:21,22