Jeremiah 3:22

Jer 3:22 Return, ye backsliding children, [and] I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou [art] the LORD our God.

Ver. 22. Return, ye backsliding children.] Give the whole turn, and not the half turn only. So Act 2:38, Peter said to them that were already pricked at heart, "Repent ye," even to a transmentation; and Jer 3:19, "Repent ye, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." Repent not only for sin, but from sin too; be thorough in your repentance; let it be such as shall never be repented of. {2Co 7:10} It is not a slight sorrow that will serve apostates’ turn; it must be deep and downright.

And I will heal your backslidings.] Pardon your sins, and heal your natures. "I will love you freely," and cause your broken bones to rejoice. {Hos 14:4 Isa 19:22} Oh sweetest promise! What wonder, then, that their hard hearts were forthwith melted by it into such a gracious compliance as followeth.

Behold, we come to thee.] See Zec 13:9. {See Trapp on "Zec 13:9"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jer 3:22. Here begins a dialogue between God and his people, wherein he offers gracious terms of pardon to them, and they make sincere professions of obedience to him. Return, ye backsliding — Or revolted, children — Return to me, and to my worship and service; return to your duty. God is introduced as saying this upon hearing the weeping and supplications of the Israelites, acknowledging their sin, and humbling themselves for it. And I will heal your backslidings — Your revolts, or apostacies: I will take away the guilt of them, and save you from a refractory and revolting disposition. God heals our backslidings by his pardoning mercy, his composing peace, and his renewing grace. Behold, we come unto thee — We readily and cheerfully obey thy command, and comply with thy invitation. It is an echo to God’s call; an immediate, speedy answer, without delay; not we will come hereafter, but we do come now; we need not take time to consider of it. For thou art the Lord our God — Words expressing the strongest inducements to return to God imaginable, because God had an undoubted right to them and their services, was willing to accept them, and able to save them, Isa 55:7; chap. Jer 14:22. Not only this latter part of the verse, but what follows, to the end of the chapter, is spoken of in the name of the Israelites, accepting the divine invitation, acknowledging the vanity of their misplaced trust, and professing the deepest contrition and shame for their misconduct. It is a description, not of what was really done by the Israelites in general, but of what was necessary to be done in order to their regaining God’s favour; and of what he foresaw would actually be done by such of them as should believe on the Messiah, when he came, and receive the privileges and blessings of the new covenant.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:22-24 The Lord heard the touching prayer of devotion; the people affirmed their acceptance of the Lord as their God (31:7; Pss 38:18; 121:1-2). • The people even confessed that they had worshiped idols and engaged in religious orgies. They admitted that all this was a delusion (Jer 11:13; 14:20; Hos 9:10) and acknowledged that salvation is found only in the Lord. Their ancestors had squandered their wealth by killing their animals and children in honor of Baal.

3:22 The Lord did not forget his children. Out of the depths of his being, he called them to come back so that he could heal them. He desired to set aside his anger and pour forth his love (30:17; 33:6; Hos 6:1; 14:4).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

This is spoken in the person of Israel to the shame of Judah, which stayed so long to turn unto God.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Jehovah's renewed invitation (Jer 3:12, Jer 3:14) and their immediate response.

heal--forgive (Ch2 30:18, Ch2 30:20; Hos 14:4).

unto thee--rather, "in obedience to thee"; literally, "for thee" [ROSENMULLER].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 22. Return, ye backsliding children] This they gladly receive, and with one voice make their confession to him: "Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art Jehovah our God;" and thence to the end of the chapter, show the reasons why they return unto God.

1. Because he is the true God.

2. Because the idols did not profit them: they could give no help in time of trouble.

3. Because it is the prerogative of God alone to give salvation.

4. Because they had no kind of prosperity since they had abandoned the worship of their Maker. And this was not only their case, but it was the case of their forefathers, who all suffered in consequence of their idolatry and disobedience.

5. These reasons are concluded with a hearty confession of sin, at the thought of which they are confounded; for the remembrance of their sin was grievous to them, and the burden was intolerable. This confession ended, God appears in the next chapter with gracious promises, and proper directions how they are to return, and how to conduct themselves in future.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

God here exhorts the Israelites to repent, that by their example he might move the Jews. The benefit of what is here taught might indeed have reached to the miserable captives and exiles; but as Jeremiah was especially the teacher of his own nation, he labored chiefly no doubt for their advantage, as we have before stated. God then here declares, that he would be reconcilable to the Israelites, how grievously soever they had sinned, he afterwards introduces them as answering, Behold, we return, or we shall come to thee: for the Prophet speaks here of the future conversion of the ten tribes.

It is then a dialogue between God and the Israelites. God himself freely invites them to repent: Return, he says, ye rebellious children; and then he promises to be a physician to heal their diseases: I will heal thy transgressions; that is, I will blot out thy sins, and absolve thee from guilt. God then undertakes to do these things; first, to stimulate the Israelites to repentance, and then to give them the hope of pardon: and he says that a remedy was provided for them, except they hardened themselves. Now, the Israelites, on the other hand, make this answer, Behold, we shall come to thee Here Jeremiah condemns the obstinacy of his own nation, by saying, that the Israelites, when thus kindly invited by God, would not be perverse, but would, on the contrary, be tractable and obedient. This indeed was not fulfilled, when a liberty to return was given to the people, except in the case of a few, who had a right feeling, and preferred the glory of God to their temporal advantages. But the number was small; nor was it a matter of surprise; for God had not previously said, without reason, that if one came from a city, and two from a tribe, he would be received, though others continued fixed in their perverseness. However this may have been, God here intimates that the Israelites would not be so refractory as not to obey his admonition when the hope of pardon and salvation would be presented to them: and this is mentioned, that the perverseness of the Jews might appear more detestable.

But some think that the Israelites are here upbraided, because they hypocritically pretended that they always sought God. Hence they elicit this meaning, “Ye indeed say, Behold, we return to thee, thou art our God;” as though he condemned their hypocrisy, because they falsely alleged that they always sought him. But this view seems to me foreign to the intention of the Prophet. Hence I doubt not but that Jeremiah sets before the Jews, as in a picture, what ought to have constrained them not to persist so obstinately in their sinful courses: “Behold,” he says, “God is prepared to receive into favor your brethren, who are undone and past all hope; and when they shall hear God’s voice kindly and graciously inviting them to himself, they will doubtless return: why then do not ye obey?”

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(22) Return, ye backsliding children . . .—We lose, as before, the force of the Hebrew repetition of the same root, Turn, ye children that have turned, I will heal your turnings. As so often in Hebrew poetry, we have the answer to the invitation given in dramatic form, and hear the cry—we might almost call it the litany—of the suppliants, “Behold, we come unto thee.” They at last own Jehovah as their one true God.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

22. God’s reply to the lamentation and expressions of repentance. The Hebrew is striking in its play on the word turn, Turn, ye turned children; I will heal your turnings. Cp. Jer_3:6; Hos_14:4.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Return, ye backsliding children,.... This is the call of the Jews to repentance in the latter day; See Gill on Jer 3:14.

and I will heal your backslidings; that is, I will forgive your sins. Sins are the diseases of the soul, and the wounds made in it; and pardoning them is healing them. So the Targum,

"I will forgive you when ye return;''

see Psa 103:3, this is done by the application of the blood of Christ, the only physician, and whose blood is the balm that heals every wound; and this springs from the love of God, and his free favour to his people, even the riches of his grace and abounding mercy through Christ; and is the great motive and inducement, and what gives the greatest encouragement to return unto the Lord, Hos 14:1.

Behold, we come unto thee; the Targum represents this as what the Jews pretended always to say, and did say, in a hypocritical manner, with which they are upbraided,

"lo, at all times ye say, we return to thy worship, save us;''

and Jarchi is of opinion that these are words the prophet put into their mouths, and taught them to say, and to confess in this manner: but they are rather their own words, arising from a true sense of sin, under the influence of divine grace, and encouraged with the hope and assurance of pardon; declaring that as they were called upon to return, so they did return, and now were come to God by repentance, with confession and acknowledgment of sin, and by prayer and supplication for pardon and by the exercise of faith upon him for it; and also were come into his house to wait upon him, and worship him in his ordinances:

for thou art the Lord our God; not merely as the God of nature and providence, or in a natural way, but in a way of special grace, of which they now will have an application by the Spirit of God.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Yahweh’s answer to their prayer in Jer 3:21 is immediately followed by their acceptance of the offer of divine mercy.

For - Rather, because ... This profession of faith gives the reason why they return to Yahweh. The whole description is most graphically conceived. The people weeping upon the hills: God’s gracious voice bidding them return: the glad cry of the penitents exclaiming that they come: the profession of faith won from them by the divine love; these form altogether a most touching picture of a national repentance.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Return, viz. repent for sin and from sin. Here God calls upon them, and invites them to consider whither they are going, and to hearken unto the voice of his ministers, Hos 14:1; Act 3:19. See Jer 3:12. God doth as it were bid them hearken to his messengers, and then he will heal their backsliding.

I will heal your backslidings, i.e. idolatries, whereby you turned from me, and rebelled against me; I will take you into that state, as if you had never turned from me; I will make all whole again among you, and reconcile you to myself, Isa 57:18; Jer 32:40. See Zec 10:6; 13:9. I will not only remove your judgments, but your sins also shall be forgiven.

Behold, we come unto thee. This is either God’s framing their answer for them, prescribing the manner and form of their repentance, by a figure called mimesis, Hos 14:2,3; or it is their reply to God by way of promise, which they performed under Josiah, 2Ki 22; 2Ki 23, which with their confession reacheth to the end of the chapter.

For thou art the Lord our God; words expressing the strongest inducements to it imaginable, because God hath right to them, is willing to accept them, and able to save them, Isa 55:7; Jer 14:22.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

22. Answering to this penitence is God’s gracious willingness to receive and pardon. The prophet echoes the divine invitation and promise.

Return, ye backsliding children… I will heal your backslidings — Literally, Turn, ye turned children, I will heal your turnings. To this promise they answer, Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Return, ye backsliding children, etc.; more literally, Turn, ye turned-away sons; I will heal your turnings. (as Hos_14:4) It seems strange at first sight that this verso does not stand before ver. 21. But the truth is that ver. 21 describes not so much the "conversion" of the Jews as their willingness to "convert" (an archaism of King James"s Bible, which we may well regret), or "turn" to God. Christ must touch, or at least make his presence felt, in order that the sick man may be healed; a special call of God must be heard, in order that the sinner may truly repent. Behold, we come unto thee. Efficacious, and not "irresistible" grace, is the doctrine of the Old Testament.

Invitation and response.

I THE INVITATION.

1. The object of the invitation. God calls on his people to return to him. Not simple reformation of morals, but the restoration of personal relations with God as the Father of his people is desired.

2. The condition of the invited. They are apostate children; i.e.

a. they are far from God, though

b. they were once near to him, and

c. they are still his children.

As sinners, men have all lost a first estate of innocence, but have not lost, and can never lose, their filial relationship to God. Hence

(1) the greatness of their guilt and

(2) the hope of their restoration.

3. The accompanying promise. God invites and does not drive; he here exchanges threats for promises. God will heal, not simply receive his children. God alone can heal their apostasies. Man repents of sin, but God cures it. It is our part to turn from the evil, God"s to destroy that evil. Sin is washed out, not by the tears of penitence, but by the blood of Christ. The healing is of the apostasies themselves, not simply of their painful effects. Christ saves from sin. This is what God most requires in us, and what we most need for our own blessedness. (Joh_1:29)

II THE RESPONSE.

1. An expression of willing obedience. "Behold, we come unto thee." This response must be voluntary. God waits for man"s return, does not force it; since what he desires is not the abject submission of vanquished enemies, but the loving reconciliation of children. This response must also be active. "We come." The penitent does not simply "accept" the grace of God in a passive faith. He must "arise and go". (Luk_15:18) This implies exertion of will, active obedience.

2. An indication of the grounds of that obedience. "For thou art the Lord our God." God invites by a promise of blessing to his people; they respond by turning from the thought of their own profit to that of the character and claim of God. The great motive to return is found in what God is rather than in what he does, because the return is to him and not merely to his blessings. Men will return to God when they see what there is in him to attract them to his feet. Hence the importance of knowing God. (Job_22:21) Christ invites us by revealing the Father. (Joh_14:6, Joh_14:7)

(1) We should think of the revealed character of God as a ground for returning to him. Israel returns by remembering the ancient Name "Jehovah," with its glorious significance and its sacred memories.

(2) We should think of God"s peculiar relations with us. Israel thinks of "Jehovah our God." This relationship points to God"s claim upon us, rising out of his recognized authority as "ours," and the special covenant bonds of those who have once yielded themselves to him, and also to the peculiar grace God bestows on his people, which both increases the obligation and facilitates the effort to return.

"Backsliding Israel.

"Backsliding" was the characteristic vice of the Jewish people throughout the whole course of their history. Their career was one of perpetual sinning and repenting, until the great apostasy, the final "falling away." And in this we see what is too often a truthful reflection of the individual life of men. The Jews were emphatically a representative people. Not merely does their recorded history represent the method of God"s ways, but it illustrates the folly and treachery, the moral weakness and waywardness of our human nature. Dwell on the individual application of this passage. Consider

I THE EVIL INDICATED. "Backsliding" is suggestive of a turning away from God, a departure from the path of truth and righteousness, a fall from some higher state of spiritual consciousness or moral life. This evil may assume different forms. It may consist:

1. In the loss of the simplicity and integrity of religious faith. In an age of mental restlessness like the present, men too easily lose their hold of truth, which is the very hope and life of their souls. We may look with perfect composure upon the conflict between truth and error as regards its general and ultimate issues, but dare not forget how disastrous its bearings upon the individual life may be. There are revolutions in the history of religious thought, as in the history of nations, which it is as vain to think of arresting as it would be to attempt to turn back the ocean tide; but it is a mournful thing when, under such conditions, the mind that once had a firm grasp of the vital elements of Christian truth has slipped from its moorings and drifted out into the wild sea of doubt and uncertainty. To a really earnest spirit the recovery of a lost faith is generally a painful process. How many have traveled back, as with wounded, bleeding feet, to positions of clearer vision and firmer standing which they once occupied, but in an evil hour had forsaken! As sometimes after a bright morning, which has been followed by a day of cloud and storm, there is again at sunset a glorious outbursting gleam of the radiance that had been obscured; so is it with their souls. They return to rest calmly in the truth that they had for a while lost sight of, and "at eventide," as in the morning, "it is light.

2. In the decline of religious feeling, the decay of those affections in which religious life consists. This is that secret spiritual "backsliding" that directly affects the soul"s personal relation to God, and the consciousness of which sometimes extorts the bitter cry, "Oh that I were as in months past!" etc. (Job_29:2-4) It may arise from no change in religious belief. While a departure from the simplicity of the faith is generally connected with a lowering of the tone of religious feeling, the converse of this is not always true. But the faith has lost its life-giving force. The light it sheds has no warm, kindling glow. It is the light of the moon rather than the sun clear and cold, having no power to quicken the frame of nature, to develop its beauty and fruitfulness, to awaken its music, and fill it with exulting joy. The carnalizing influences of the world, the wear and tear of daily life, inevitably lead to this internal spiritual decay, unless there is a perpetual renewal of the life "whose springs are hidden and Divine.

3. In practical departure from the standard of religious duty. The backsliding of the heart cannot long be concealed. It betrays itself in many ways in a forsaking of the paths of Christian service, in some manifest lack of moral integrity, in a relapse into some form of vicious habit, perhaps in a complete loosening of the bonds of religious restraint, and utter abandonment to the pursuits of an ungodly life. It is of such a case that our Lord says, "If the salt have lost his savor," etc.; (Mat_5:13) and again, "No man, having put his hand to the plough," etc.; (Luk_9:62) and St. Peter afterwards affirms, "It had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness," etc. (2Pe_2:21)

II GOD"S METHOD OF HEALING. "I will heal your backslidings." This is the gracious persuasion by which he seeks to reclaim his children from their guilty wanderings. How may we expect him to fulfill the promise?

1. By awakening in us a vivid sense and penitent acknowledgment of the wrong. We can scarcely be delivered from it till we have seen all the sin and shame of it its real meaning, the source from whence it springs, the end to which it leads. Until all this is deeply felt and freely confessed before God, the first step in the process of recovery has not been taken. (see Psa_51:3, 4 32:5 2Co_7:10, 2Co_7:11)

2. By moving us to trust simply in his forgiving and renewing mercy. Our only refuge is in the Divine mercy, and there is no other way of mercy than that which the gospel reveals. The guilt of our backslidings can alone be cancelled by the blood of Christ, and the secret cause of them removed by the grace of his Spirit. (1Jn_2:1, 2 3:5-9) "There is no prescription for the sickness of the heart but that which is written in the Redeemer"s blood," for in this alone have we both the pledge and the channel of the saving love of God.

3. By creating in us the energy of a nobler life: "Return," etc. It is a question, after all, of moral resolution and serf-determining spiritual power. "Full seldom does a man repent, or use Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch Of blood and custom wholly out of him, And make all clean, and plant himself afresh.

But God gives this gracious energy to those who seek it, and such "repentance unto life" is the true "healing. W.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here we are, we have come to You The prophet teaches them to confess and to say as follows, “Here we are, we have come to You... Truly, in vain... But the shameful thing has consumed, etc., Let us lie in our shame.” All this is the language of the prayer that the prophet teaches them to say.

We have come אתנו.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.