Jeremiah 31:2

Jer 31:2 Thus saith the LORD, The people [which were] left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; [even] Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.

Ver. 2. The people that were left of the sword.] Of Pharaoh’s sword, who pursued them; and though he smote them not, because the Lord kept him off, yet he is said to have done it: {a} like as Balak afterwards "arose and fought against Israel," {Jos 24:9} he had a mind so to have done, but that he was overawed: he did not indeed, because he dared not.

When I went to bring him to rest,] i.e., To the land of Canaan, after so long trouble and travel. I effected that then, though it were held improbable or impossible: so will I do this promised reduction of my people from Babylon.

{a} Fieri dicitur quod tentatur aut intenditur.

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 31:2. The people that were left of the sword — That sword of Pharaoh with which he cut off the male children as soon as they were born, and that sword with which he threatened to cut them off when he pursued them to the Red sea. Found grace in the wilderness — Though in the wilderness, where they seemed to be lost and forgotten, as these latter Jews and Israelites were now in a strange land, yet they found grace in God’s sight, were owned, and highly honoured by him, and blessed with wonderful instances of his peculiar favour. And he went to cause them to rest — Went before them in a pillar of cloud, to mark out the places for them where they should pitch their tents, and conducted them to the land that he had provided for them. And after such evidences of his kindness to them, why should they doubt of the continuance of his favours?

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

31:2 The Lord directed his message to those who would survive the coming destruction at the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC.

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

Which were delivered from the cruelty of Pharaoh.

To wit, God.

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

Upon the grace manifested to Israel "in the wilderness" God grounds His argument for renewing His favors to them now in their exile; because His covenant is "everlasting" (Jer 31:3), and changes not. The same argument occurs in Hos 13:5, Hos 13:9-10; Hos 14:4-5, Hos 14:8. Babylon is fitly compared to the "wilderness," as in both alike Israel was as a stranger far from his appointed "rest" or home, and Babylon is in Isa 40:3 called a "desert" (compare Jer 50:12).

I went to cause him to rest--namely, in the pillar of cloud and fire, the symbol of God's presence, which went before Israel to search a resting-place (Num 10:33; Isa 63:14) for the people, both a temporary one at each halt in the wilderness, and a permanent one in Canaan (Exo 33:14; Deu 3:20; Jos 21:44; Psa 95:11; Heb 3:11).

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 2. The people which were left of the sword] Those of the ten tribes that had escaped death by the sword of the Assyrians.

Found grace in the wilderness] The place of their exile; a wilderness, compared to their own land.-Dahler. See Isa 40:3.

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

I omit here any remarks on the first verse; for it was explained in connection, with the 22d verse of the last chapter (Jeremiah 30:22). The verb הלוך eluk, in the second verse, is in the infinitive mood, but it is to be taken as a preterite, and in this interpreters agree. But some apply it to God, that he is a leader to his people, until he brings them to rest; and as the verb, להרגיעו, laeregiou, to rest him, so to speak, is in Hiphil, it seems that this ought to be ascribed to God. But we may take the words more simply, “until he betakes himself to rest;” added afterwards is the word “Israel;” and thus we may render the pronoun “himself,” and not “him,” — until then he betook himself to rest

Let us now come to the truth which the Prophet handles: he reminds the people, no doubt, of the ancient benefits of God, in order that the miserable exiles might entertain hope, and not doubt but that God would be their deliverer, though they were drowned, as it were, in Chaldea, and overwhelmed with a deluge of evils. This is the reason why he mentions the desert, and why Jeremiah also adds, that they who were then preserved had escaped from the sword For the people, though they dwelt in a pleasant and fertile country, were in a manner in a desert, when compared with their own country. As then the Israelites had been driven far away into foreign lands, all the regions where they then inhabited are compared to a desert. A similar mode of speaking is adopted by Isaiah when he says,

“A voice crying in the desert, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight paths in the wilderness.” (Isaiah 40:3)

What did he understand then by desert? even the most fertile regions, Chaldea, Assyria, and other neighboring countries. But with regard to the people, he thus calls these countries, because their exile was always sorrowful and miserable. So then in this place the Prophet, in order to animate the exiles with hope, says, that though they had been sent away to unknown regions, yet distance, or anything else which might seem opposed to their liberation, could not prevent God to restore them; for he formerly liberated their fathers when they were in Egypt.; Now as the Jews might again object and say, that they were few in number, and also that they were ever exposed to the sword, as they dwelt among conquerors the most cruel, he says, that their fathers were not preserved otherwise than by a miracle; they had been snatched, as it were, from the midst of death.

We now perceive the design of the Prophet; and we may include in a few words the substance of what he says, — That there was no reason to fear, that God would not, in due time, deliver his people; for it was well known, that when he became formerly the liberator of his people, his power was rendered illustrious in various ways, nay, that it was inconceivably great, since for forty years he nourished his people in the desert, and also that their coming out was as though the dead arose from their graves, for the Egyptians might have easily killed the whole people; so that they were taken as it were from death, when they were led into the land which had been promised to Abraham. There was therefore no doubt but that God would again, in a wonderful way, deliver them, and manifest the same power in liberating them as was formerly exhibited towards their fathers.

A profitable doctrine may hence be gathered: Whenever despair presents itself to our eyes, or whenever our miseries tempt us to despair, let the benefits of God come to our minds, not only those which we ourselves have experienced, but also those which he has in all ages conferred on his Church, according to what David also says, who had this one consolation in his grief, when pressed down with extreme evils and almost overwhelmed with despair,

“I remember the days of old.” (Psalm 143:5)

So that he not only called to mind the benefits of God which he himself had experienced, but also what he had heard of from his fathers, and what he had read of in the books of Moses. In the same manner the Prophet here reminds us of God’s benefits, when we seem to be forsaken by him; for this one thought is capable of alleviating and comforting us. This is the import of the whole. It now 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.

(2) The people which were left of the sword . . .—The main thought of this and the next verse is that the past experience of God’s love is a pledge or earnest for the future. Israel of old had “found grace in the wilderness” (comp. Hos_11:1). But as the prophet has in his thoughts a new manifestation of that love, his language is modified accordingly. He thinks of the captives that had escaped, or should hereafter escape, the sword of the Chaldæans (there had been no such deliverance in the case of the Egyptian exodus), and of their finding grace in the wilderness that lies between Palestine and the Euphrates. The verses that follow show, however, that the prophet is thinking also of the more distant exiles, the ten tribes in the cities of the Medes beyond the Tigris (2Ki_17:6).

Even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.—The verb that answers to the last five words includes the meaning of “settling” or “establishing,” as well as of giving rest; and the whole clause is better translated Let me go, or I will go (the verb is in the infinitive with the force of an imperative, but this is its meaning) to set him at rest, even Israel.

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

2. Gi., Du. and Co. agree in considering Jer_31:1-6 as, in their main substance, a genuine and early utterance of Jeremiah. The language suggests a date approximately that of ch. 3. Those of the Northern tribes who have survived the slaughter attendant upon their overthrow, and are in the “wilderness” of exile, shall see the Lord, and find favour in His eyes. Their hitherto restless wanderings shall have an end. They shall return to their old home. The verbs are in the “prophetic past.” The prophet describes the reconciliation with Jehovah as already accomplished.

when I went to cause him to rest] or, mg. when he went to find him rest; but better than either (as Jehovah appears still to be the speaker), I will go, that I may cause Israel to rest (so Dr.).

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, the people which were left of the sword,.... Which were not consumed by the sword of Pharaoh, who perished not through his cruel edicts, and by his sword, when drawn at the Red sea; nor by the sword of the Amalekites and Amorites; or of their own brethren, who sometimes, for their sins, were ordered to slay many, as on account of the molten calf, and joining to Baalpeor: but there was a remnant that escaped, who

found grace in the wilderness; in the sight of God, who went before them, protected and defended them from their enemies; gave them his holy law, his statutes, and his judgments; fed them with manna and quails; clave the rocks, and gave them water to drink; and supplied them with everything necessary for them, Psa 78:5;

even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest; went before him in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night; and in the ark, the symbol of his presence; and not only to search out a resting place for them for a few days, but to bring them to Canaan, the land of rest, which he had promised them, Exo 13:21; now this past instance of divine goodness is mentioned, to encourage faith in the fulfilment of the above promise. The whole is paraphrased by the Targum thus,

"these things saith the Lord, who gave mercies to the people that came out of Egypt; he supplied their necessities in the wilderness, when they fled from before those who slay with the sword; he led them by his word, to cause Israel to dwell in a place of rest.''

Some render the words in the future, "shall find grace", &c. "shall go to his rest", &c. and so apply it to the Jews that escaped the sword of the Chaldeans, and found favour in the wilderness of the people into which they were brought, and as they returned into their own land from the captivity. And it, nay be also applied to the Jews that were left of the sword of the Romans in their last destruction, who have found much favour among the nations; as they do in ours, and others, now; and who in time will return to their own land, and be in rest, Jer 30:10. Yea, it is applicable enough to the church and people of God in their present state; who are left of the sword of the Papists, and are now in the wilderness, where they are nourished for a time, and times, and half a time; and before long will be brought into a state of settled rest and tranquillity.

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

The people which were left of the sword - A promise of the restoration of the ten tribes to their land.

The wilderness - Either the desert which lay between Assyria and Palestine; or more probably an allusion to the wilderness of Mount Sinai.

Found grace ... rest - Rather, “shall certainly find grace; I will go to give Israel rest.

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

Desert. From which the former inhabitants had been driven, (4 Kings xvii. 6, 24.; Calmet) or, as those under Moses were favoured, (Haydock) so shall the captives. (Grotius) --- Septuagint, "I found him warm," (Greek: thermon, means also a lupin, which has misled the old Latin interpreters. St. Jerome) murdered "in the desert, with those slain by the sword. Go, and destroy not Israel." (Haydock)

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).

God confirmeth the aforementioned promises, and his people’s hope and faith in them, by minding them of what he had anciently done for this very people. Though God did, in the journey which the Israelites had from Egypt to Canaan, cut off many of them by the sword for their iniquities, some by the Amalekites, Exo 17:8, some by the swords of their brethren for the idolatry they committed about the golden calf, Exo 32:28; yet those that survived that and other judgments found favour in God’s eyes while they were going to Canaan the land of rest, or while God, going before them, brought them into Canaan. God paralleleth his future providences and gracious purposes with his past gracious providences.

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

2. The people — Those of Jeremiah’s time, and not, as the language might suggest and as some have thought, of Moses’s time. See Jer_51:50.

Wilderness — Babylon.

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

The people which were left of the sword, etc.; literally, the people of those left of the sword. The expression clearly implies that the Jews at the time spoken of had escaped, or were about to escape, in some great battle or some other kind of slaughter. Hence the finding grace in the wilderness cannot refer to the sequel of the passage through the Red Sea, and we must perforce explain it of the second great deliverance, viz. from the Babylonian exile. This view is strongly confirmed by Jer_51:50, where the Israelites who escape the predicted slaughter at Babylon are called "escaped ones from the sword," and exhorted to remember Jehovah and Jerusalem "afar off." The "wilderness" of the present passage, like the "afar off" of Jer 51 (and of the next verse) seems to mean Babylon, which was, by comparison with the highly favoured Judah, a "barren and dry land", (comp. Psa_63:1) a spiritual Arabia. It may be objected that the tense here is the perfect; but there is abundance of analogy for explaining it as the prophetic perfect. The restoration of the chosen people to favour is as certain in the Divine counsels as if it were already an event past. (It seems less appropriate to understand "the wilderness" of the country which separated Assyria from Palestine. It was in Babylon that the covenant of Sinai was renewed to God"s repentant people.) Even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest; rather, when I went to cause Israel to rest (literally, to cause him Israel to rest; but the pleonastic pronoun need not be represented in the English). Another possible and perhaps preferable rendering is, I will go to cause, etc. "Rest" could only be had in the consciousness of God"s favor. With all the outward property of many of the Jews in Babylon, there was no true "rest." Comp. chap. 16, "Ask for the old paths.., and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls" (the same verbal root in the Hebrew for "rest" in both passages).

HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR Ver. 2. Grace preparing for grace.

There is some doubt as to the time alluded to, whether that of the Exodus or that of the Exile. A careful examination would seem to make it clear that the former alone corresponds to the description. Pharaoh"s cruel edict and the judgments and wars of the desert thinned the ranks of the Israelites. A remnant was left, with whom God entered into covenant relationship. Their survival under these circumstances was a sign of the Divine favour, at the time hard to be understood, but in the future abundantly confirmed. Their ultimate entrance into Canaan was the seal of their acceptance.

I THE PRESENT TROUBLES OF SAINTS ARE NO PROOF OF THEIR REJECTION. The history of the Church shows this. Here is an instance; there have been many such. The best of God"s servants have been most severely tried, and that just before attaining great rewards and satisfactions. The exiles of Babylon are, therefore, to be of good cheer. The afflictions of the present may not only be the punishment for past transgressions, but much more a preparation for future blessedness and usefulness, a grace in germ if not in formation. In the case of the Church they may bring back to a study of the title deeds of faith; in that of the individual they may promote humility, heart searching, and efforts to amend. However hard to bear, they should be endured as a grace preparing for grace.

II WHERE THE ESSENCE OF GOD"S GRACE IS PRESENT, THE FULNESS OF IT MAY BE WAITED FOR.

1. What is the essential element in grace? Is it not the consciousness of acceptance with God? The child of God knows that he is such, and that therefore he is the subject of gracious influences from the Holy Spirit, and heir of all that is truly good.

2. It is in view of this that present circumstances are to be interlarded. The good as well as the evil. Our true, eternal blessedness lies beyond our greatest present happiness, amongst the "things prepared." Our anxiety should be, not for immediate possessions, but for meetness for the inheritance, and for entering in by the right way. M.

Troubles lessened by increase.

"The people which were... wilderness." The sword by which Israel had been decimated, her ranks thinned, her homes desolated what a trouble was that! And now it is to be followed by "the wilderness that "waste howling wilderness" so vividly described by Moses. (Deu_1:19 Deu_8:15 Deu_32:10) This would seem another, a new, a sore trouble, but it was to be the means of healing the wound caused by the first. Cf. "I have given the valley of Achor for a door of hope". (Hos_2:15)

I THE MEANING OF THESE WORDS. It is not easy to say certainly what sword and what wilderness the prophet had in his mind when he thus wrote. Perhaps the sword of Pharaoh and the wilderness of Sinai. Yet more likely the sword of their Babylonian conquerors; and the wilderness, that great Syrian desert across which they must travel on their homeward way a wilderness far more deserving of the dread epithets which Moses applied to the wilderness of Sinai. Or the wilderness may mean the whole condition of the Jews in their exile, the deep sorrow, shame, and distress which their captivity seemed to threaten them with.

II But, let it be understood how it may, THE PROPHETIC STATEMENT IS TRUE. In the wilderness of Sinai what grace God"s people found there! Blessings in basket and in store, in guidance, governance, guardianship; in instruction, discipline, and development as a nation: how they were welded together, trained for duty, qualified for the high honour God designed for them! And in the wilderness which they had to cross on their return from their exile, infested, then as now, with robber tribes, to whom their comparatively scant numbers, their unwarlike character, and above all their treasures of gold and silver destined for the temple of God, would offer an irresistible temptation, how could the exiles have escaped this peril of the wilderness, to say nothing of many others, but for the grace of God? It was emphatically true that they "found grace in the wilderness." Those dreary leagues of burning sand, the awful dangers of the way, might well have daunted them, and no doubt did deter the majority of the people from all attempt at return; for it was but a remnant that came back. But all these perils were surmounted. Day after day for four months the caravan of the exiles crept along the wilderness way. "Unlike that of Sinai, it was diversified by no towering mountains, no delicious palm groves, no gushing springs. A hard gravel plain from the moment they left the banks of the Euphrates till they reached the northern extremity of Syria, with no solace except the occasional wells and walled stations. Ferocious hordes of Bedouin robbers then, as now, swept the whole trail." But like their great ancestor, "they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the laud of Canaan they came." "They," as he, "found grace in the wilderness." And so abundant was that grace that their perilous enterprise became a veritable march of triumph. "The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away." "As before some royal potentate, there would go before them an invisible Protector, who should remove the hard stones from the bare feet of those that ran beside the camels, and cast them up in piles on either side to mark the broad track seen for miles along the desert." (Cf. Isa_40:1-4, for description of this grace found in the wilderness.) And so what seemed so sore a trouble added on to the sword of the exile, was in reality the healing of the wound caused by that sword. But this is often the Divine plan. The second trouble heals the first, and so trouble is lessened by increase. Note

III FURTHER ILLUSTRATIONS. The plague of London was followed by the fire, but that fire purged the city as nothing else could, and no such plague has visited it since. In medical science it is well known how often one disease is driven out by another. In the hot, close valleys of mountainous lands the wild storm is welcomed, notwithstanding its fierce might, overturning and destroying in ruthless manner, for it purges the whole atmosphere and drives away the seeds of disease and death. The heat was terrible, and the storm, but the second trouble lessened the first. To have to leave Paradise and to go out into a wilderness in which thorns and briars should abound was another trouble, but the labour the second demanded was to be the healing force whereby the first loss should be lessened and the curse turned into a blessing. What a tissue of troubles Jacob"s life seems to have been made up of! and yet once and again the new trouble healed the old. The imprisonment of his sons in Egypt led to his recovery of his lost son Joseph. Death follows on disease. Ah! what a new trouble is death in instances not a few! but in that wilderness of the grave what grace the departed soul finds there! Take our Lord"s illustration of the birth of children: how the last sorrows of the birth throes, the dread hour of travail, because thereby a new life is born, are with all the pain that went before forgotten, "remembered no more"! And in things spiritual the law of our text is true. The prodigal"s outward misery was followed by the inward pangs of shame, remorse, and sorrow. But they led to the "I will arise and go," etc. And to a renewed soul what misery there is in the return of temptation! and if it have overcome the soul, what yet greater misery haunts the soul then! "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord." But that new distress is to render the recurrence of the first less and less possible, and by and by impossible. In God"s providential ordering of our affairs, this same law is often shown. The straitened means that follow bereavement of the breadwinner of the household that poverty often develops character, compels the mind to turn from perpetual brooding over its loss, which it is so apt to do, draws forth sympathy of friends, and in innumerable ways works good. "All things" do, as a fact, "work together for good to them that love God.

IV THE PHILOSOPHY OF THIS. (Cf. Rom_5:3, Rom_5:4) The outward ills may not always be removed, but their power to do aught else than bless the believer is taken away. Instead of casting him down, they lead him into the full possession of that hope, having which the soul is independent of all that man or hell can do against it.

V ITS LESSON. If "the wilderness" should follow "the sword," we need not fear; that is to say, if a second sorrow should come upon the steps of a former one, we may regard it as a probable means of lessening the former, and not increasing it. The long sorrow of no Isaac born to Abraham was followed by the awful command to slay him; but that led to an issue that swallowed up in glory and joy all the darkness and sorrow of all the past, and lit up all the future of the long ages to come with a light whose radiance is as bright today as ever. Then let our song be, "Father, I wait thy daily will," etc. C.

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

To rest - In Canaan.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

found favor The generation of the wilderness found favor in My eyes.

who had escaped the sword of the Egyptians the Amalekites and the Canaanites.

He [therefore] went to give Israel their resting place When He led them to take possession of the land of their rest.

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.