Jeremiah 31:16

Jer 31:16 Thus saith the LORD; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.

Ver. 16. Refrain thy voice from weeping.] Take up in time, O Rachel, and the rest; God comforteth the abject, {2Co 7:7} he restoreth comfort to his mourners. {Isa 57:18}

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_31:16-17

Refrain thy voice from weeping.

Bereaved parents comforted

I. It is not sinful for parents to be grieved and sorrowful for the death of their children. If we do not grieve when we are thus stricken of God, it is an evidence that we do not feel the heavy calamity which His providence hath inflicted, and how can there be any probability that we shall be profited by it? It is by the sadness of the countenance that the heart is made better. It is in consequence of the affliction being for the present not joyous, hut grievous, that, through the Divine blessing, it bringeth forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness in them that are exercised thereby.

II. Parents should refrain from immoderate and excessive grief for the death of their children, when they consider that this event flows from Gods wise and sovereign appointment. If our children be interested in that covenant which is ordered in all things and sure, let no one say that their death is premature or unseasonable. God hath a method, which we cannot explain, of ripening those for heaven whom He gathers into it in the beginning of their days.

III. Disconsolate parents should moderate their grief for the death of their children, when we consider that our loss is their unspeakable gain. Infant children, born as it were into this world only to suffer and to die, are striking evidence of the dreadful effects of sin. They are objects of compassion to the human heart, much more to the Father of mercies. It is natural, when our children are taken away, if their faculties have begun to unfold themselves, to review the little history of their lives, and to reflect with melancholy pleasure on many passages unheeded by others, but carefully marked and remembered by parents; and if any good thing towards the Lord was found in our child, the remembrance is full of comfort. If we found their hearts grateful and affectionate for our care, and submissive to our will, these were the seeds of an amiable and humble spirit. If they had a tenderness of conscience, so far as they knew good and evil, and stood in awe of offending; if they loved and hearkened to instruction; if they had a deep veneration for the Bible, as containing the revelation of Gods mercy and goodness to His children; if they had some views, however faint, of a state of blessedness into which pious and good children enter after death; in a word, if to the last they grew in favour with God and man, this is an anchor of hope to disconsolate and afflicted parents.

IV. Parents should moderate their grief for the death of their children, when they look forward to a joyful and blessed resurrection. Our children shall come again from the land of the enemy. The husbandman doth not mourn when he casteth his seed into the ground, because he soweth in hope. He commits it to the earth with the joyful expectation of receiving it again with great improvement; so when we commit the precious dust of our relations to the earth, we are warranted to exercise a joyful hope that we shall receive them again unspeakably improved at the resurrection.

V. Parents should moderate their grief for the loss of their children, when they consider what beneficial effects this is calculated to produce in their own souls. David thankfully acknowledges it is good for me that I have been afflicted. God deals with us as a wise parent deals with froward and undutiful children. When counsels and admonitions produce no effect, He finds it necessary to correct us with the rod; and when the strokes of providence inflicted on other families have been slightly regarded by us, He finds it necessary to smite us in our own bone and flesh. It would be highly ungrateful, then, to murmur against God when He acts a fathers part toward us, and is chastening and correcting us for our spiritual profit and advantage. The impatience with which we bear the stroke, is an evidence that our affections were rooted many degrees deeper in the creature than we were aware of. Our merciful Father doth not measure out one drop from the cup of affliction, nor inflict one stripe with His correcting rod, more than He sees indispensably necessary for His childrens profit and happiness. We should take in good part every trial with which we are visited, as coming from a parents hand and a parents heart. Conclusion--

1. Let us learn resignation to Divine providence under our affliction.

2. From the death of our children, let us learn to exercise a lively faith on that state of life and immortality which is brought to light by the Gospel.

3. The death of our children should teach us to live mindful of our own death. (J. Hay, D. D.)

There is hope in thine end, saith the Lord.

Good hope

There are some who cannot endure the thought of looking forward to the end; and this in a great variety of particulars. None but Christians contemplate with delight the end of their woes, and the reason is, that they have no well-grounded hope as to the end. If a hope exists, it becomes us closely to examine on what it is founded.

I. If I were asked what constitutes my hope as a child of God, as a Christian, as an heir of glory, I should not hesitate for one moment to state that it consists of three things--the constancy of my Fathers love, the official faithfulness of my Elder Brother to His engagements, and the ministerial operations of the Comforter, pledged for the eternal salvation of my soul

II. Notice how this is owned by Jehovah Himself. Saith the Lord. This is a phrase of personal importance. He hath not only said it here in the volume of inspiration, but He saith it repeatedly, continually, powerfully unto the souls of His people when He speaks to them. What paternal tenderness is here! what paternal condescension! There are numbers of little children in different families who would, in many instances, be disposed to disregard a great deal that a servant might say, or that a stranger or a visitor might say; but when the father speaks, his voice has some weight and authority. Moreover, when Jehovah thus speaks with paternal tenderness, there is hope in His name. Suppose the case of crosses and cares, trials and anxieties, difficulties and perplexities, threatened ruin or discomfort, or the loss of domestic harmony; only let the Lord speak, and there is hope in the end, saith the Lord. In the next place, just mark, that when Jehovah speaks, when Jehovah Himself comes with His Thus saith God, it is by revealing the hope of Israel. This is the express business and ministry of God the Holy Ghost, to reveal the glorious Person of the Redeemer, under the appellation of the hope of Israel, and the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble. I beseech you to mark one more point in connection with the Lords owning this hope to exist in reality in the soul; I refer to the testimony of the internal witness of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. His testimonies have always a sanctifying tendency. (J. Irons.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

31:16-17 Rachel should not weep, because the Lord promised to bring her exiled children out of captivity and back to their own land.

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

thy work--thy parental weeping for thy children [ROSENMULLER]. Thine affliction in the loss of thy children, murdered for Christ's sake, shall not be fruitless to thee, as was the case in thy giving birth to the "child of thy sorrow," Benjamin. Primarily, also, thy grief shall not be perpetual: the exiles shall return, and the land be inhabited again [CALVIN].

come again-- (Hos 1:11).

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 16. They shall come again from the land of the enemy.] This could not be said of the murdered innocents at Bethlehem; they never came again; but the Jews, who had gone into captivity, did come again from the land of their enemy to their own border.

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

Refrain, he says, thy voice from weeping The word is בכה beke: as he had mentioned this word before in the second place, “lamentation, the weeping of bitterness,” so he now repeats the same here, “Refrain thy voice from weeping,” that is, cease to complain and to bewail the death of thy children, and thine eyes from tears The meaning is, that the lamentation of Rachel would not be perpetual. We have said that a dead woman is introduced, but that this is done for the sake of solemnity and effect, so that the Jews, having the matter set as it were before their eyes, might be more touched and moved. But if we wish to understand the meaning of the Prophet without a figure it is this, — that the lamentation would not be perpetual, because the exiles would return, and that the land that had fallen to the lot of the children of Benjamin and of Joseph would again be inhabited.

And he says, for reward shall be to thy work He means that the sorrow of Rachel would at length happily come to an end, so as to produce some benefit. While the faithful, according to Isaiah, were complaining that they were oppressed with grief without hope, they said, “We have been in travail, and brought forth wind:” by these words they meant that they had experienced the heaviest troubles; and then they added, “without fruit,” as though a woman were in travail and suffered the greatest pain and anguish, and brought forth no living, but a dead child, which is sometimes the case. Now a woman who gives birth to a living child rejoices, as Christ says, because a man is born, (John 16:21) but when a woman after long pains brings forth a dead lump or something monstrous, it is an increase of sorrow. So the Prophet says, that the labor of Rachel, that is, of her country, would not be without fruit: there shall then be a reward to thy work The Scripture uses the same way of speaking in 2 Chronicles 15:7, where the Prophet Azariah speaks to the King Asa,

“Act manfully, and let not your hands be weakened, for there shall be a reward to your work.”

Then by work is to be understood trouble or sorrow, and by reward a joyful and prosperous issue. The meaning is, that though the whole country mourned miserably for a time, being deserted and bereaved of its inhabitants, yet the issue would be joyful, for the Lord would restore the exiles, so that the land would be like a mother having a numerous family, and delighting in her children, or in her offspring.

Now, were any one to apply this to satisfactions, he would be doing what is very absurd, as the Papists do, who say that by the punishment which we suffer we are redeemed from eternal death, and that then the vengeance of God is pacified, and satisfaction is made to his justice. But when the Prophet declares that there would be reward to the work, he does not commend the fruits of the punishment by which God chastised his people, as though they were, as they say, satisfactions; but he simply reminds them that their troubles and sorrows would not be useless, for a happier issue than the Jews hoped for would take place. But it is God’s gratuitous gift that there is a reward to our work, that is, when the miseries and calamities which he inflicts on us are made aids to our salvation. For doubtless whatever evils we suffer, they are tokens of God’s wrath; poverty, cold, famine, sterility, disease, and all other evils, are so many curses inflicted by God. When, therefore, there is a reward to our troubles and sorrows, that is, when they produce some benefit or fruit, it is as though God turned darkness into light; for naturally, as I have said, all these punishments are curses. But God promises that he will bless us, so that all these punishments shall turn out for our good and salvation, as Paul tells us in Romans 8:28.

Then he adds, they shall return from the land of the enemy By these words he refers to the restoration of the people, so that Rachel would again see her posterity inheriting the promised land. But there is no reason refinedly to dispute here, whether Rachel rejoiced at the return of her offspring, or whether that calamity was lamented by her; for the Prophet’s object was not to shew whether or not the dead are conscious of our affairs; but he speaks figuratively in order to render what he said more striking and forcible. It follows, —

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.

(16) Thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord.—Literally, there-shall be a reward for thy work. The words are a reproduction of the old prophecy of Azariah, the son of Oded (2Ch_15:7). Rachel, personifying the northern kingdom, perhaps even the collective unity of all Israel, is thought of as labouring in the work of repentance and reformation, as with a mother’s care, and is comforted with the thought that her labour shall not be in vain. This seems a more satisfactory interpretation than that which refers the “work” of the weeping Rachel to the travail of child-birth.

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

16. thy work shall be rewarded] As children have been in thy life and thy death a subject of pain and grief to thee, and as these thy descendants again have grievously perished, so the recompense for all this trouble now arrives, and thou shalt witness the return of the captives.

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.

Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears,.... Though sorrow on such an occasion may be lawfully indulged, yet it ought to be moderated; and attention should be given to those things which may serve to relieve under it, and especially when they come from the Lord himself; then a stop is to be put to the mournful voice, and wet eyes are to be dried up:

for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; in bearing these children, and bringing them into the world, and expressing such an affectionate and tender concern for them; signifying, that the trouble of bearing and bringing them into the world, and nursing them the time they did live, should not, as it might seem, be fruitless, and to answer no end; but it should be seen hereafter, that all this was not in vain; nor should they think it so; but that they have an ample recompense of all their sorrow and trouble:

and they shall come again from the land of the enemy; meaning either Joseph, and Mary, and Jesus; who, by the warning of an angel, went into Egypt, the land of the enemy, where the Jewish fathers were once evilly entreated, just before this barbarity was committed; where they stayed till all danger was over, and then returned; see Mat 2:13; compared with Hos 11:1; or rather the murdered children, who, in the resurrection morn, shall return from the grave, the land of that "last enemy", death, which shall be destroyed, Co1 15:26; and so Rachel, and the Jewish mothers she represents, are comforted with the hopes of a better resurrection; see Heb 11:35.

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

Reward. A time fixed for thy tears being dried up, Isaias xvi. 14., and xl. 10.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The prophet in this and the following verses is brought in as one appointed of God to quiet and comfort the Rachel before mentioned, calling to her to quiet herself, and not to mourn so excessively, for God would recompense her for her afflictions, which are here understood by the term

work (as some think); but the Hebrew word פעל is hardly found in Scripture taken for affliction: others therefore apply it to Rachel, for whose piety’s sake God would show mercy to her children, as a reward of grace, though not of debt. The best interpreters think that the terms of work and reward are here used only to express the succession of a comfortable state to their miserable state in captivity, (as the wages use to follow the work,) which should make them amends for their long time of affliction; and so it is expounded by the last words of the verse.

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

16. Thy work shall be rewarded — Literally, there is a reward for thy work. Rachel weeps for the loss of her children; hence the reward spoken of must be their restoration.

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

Rachel is admonished to cease from weeping, because her work has not really been in vain; her children shall be restored. Thy work shall be rewarded. Like the Servant of the Lord, Rachel had said (though with the voiceless language of tears), "I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nought and in vain;" and like the ocean mother of Zidon, "I have not travailed, nor brought forth children, neither nourished up young men, nor brought up virgins". (Isa_23:4) Rachel"s work had been that of rearing up the patriarchs, "in whose loins" the tribes themselves were, in a certain sense. From the land of the enemy; i.e. from the countries of Israel"s dispersion. But in the spirit of St. Matthew, we may fill the passage with a higher meaning, of which the prophet (like Shakespeare sometimes) was unconscious, namely, "from death;" and the passage thus becomes an undesigned prophecy of the Resurrection.

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

Hold your voice back from weeping and your eyes from tears

The voice and eyes are spoken of as if they were people whom Rachel needed to keep from moving. AT: "Stop weeping aloud and stop crying tears" (See: Personification)

Hold your voice ... your eyes ... your work ... your children ... your future ... your descendants

Yahweh is speaking to the Israelites as if he were speaking to Rachel (Jeremiah 31:15), so all instances of "your" and the commands are singular. (See: Forms of You and Apostrophe)

this is Yahweh's declaration

In both instances of this phrase, Yahweh speaks of himself by name to express the certainty of what he is declaring. See how you translated this in Jeremiah 1:8. AT: "this is what Yahweh has declared" or "this is what I, Yahweh, have declared" (See: First, Second, or Third Person)

translationWords

suffer

adversary

hope

descend

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.