Lesson 7 : Prophets�Jeremiah 31:27-37
Beginning Discussion
Beginning Discussion
Inductive Study
Observe Broadly
Observe Closely
Cross Check
What is the Tone?
1ST Read broadly
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope."
Jeremiah 25:11 “This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”
The Tone of the Book of Jeremiah
Jeremiah 9:1 – “Oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!”
Jeremiah 4:19 – “My soul, my soul! I am in anguish! Oh, my heart! My heart is pounding in me; I cannot be silent, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.”
Hermeneutical Rule
Prophecy
Prophecy should be interpreted as a literal proclamation with a clear intended message; typically of rebuke, call to repentance, warning, hope etc – with elements of foretelling of future events.
What is the tone of Jeremiah 31?
Jeremiah 31:3–4 The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness. 4 “Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! Again you will take up your tambourines, And go forth to the dances of the merrymakers.
2nd Reading
What are the promises of God?
Remember, I love outlines.
Jeremiah 31:27–28 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. 28 “As I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to overthrow, to destroy and to bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the Lord.
P1
Future replanting, rebuilding of Israel & Judah
Jeremiah 31:29-30 “In those days they will not say again, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, But the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But everyone will die for his own wrongdoing; each man who eats the sour grapes, his own teeth will be set on edge.”
P2
Individual responsibility and consequences
Jeremiah 31:31 – 34 31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
P3
NEW COVENANT!!!
Jeremiah 31:31 – 34 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
What are the promises of the New Covenant?
i. Internal transformation: “I will put My law within them and write it on their heart” (v. 33)
ii. Personal knowledge of God: “They will all know Me” (v. 34)
iii. forgiveness: “For I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember.” (v. 34)
Jeremiah 31:35–37 Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: 36 “If this fixed order departs From before Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever.” 37 Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens above can be measured And the foundations of the earth searched out below, Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel For all that they have done,” declares the LORD.
P4
Forever Nation
Prophets are EASY! RIGHT?!�
Be Safe Interpreters ��a. Whatever it literally says. Interpret the words of the prophets in their usual, literal and historical sense, unless the context clearly indicates they have a symbolic meaning. ��b. Whatever the NT revelation says. Prophecy should be interpreted literally unless the context or some later reference in Scripture indicates otherwise.��
Example
Jeremiah 31:27–28 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. 28 “As I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to overthrow, to destroy and to bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the Lord.
Sow Israel = NT evangelism
Seed of beast = prosperity of Christian nation
LHGH
Allegorical
3rd Reading
What is the Historical Context?
What is the covenant context?
Historical Context ( bible intro)
Judah verge of Exile, 3 stages of getting deported to Babylon.
1. First Deportation (605 B.C.) – Nebuchadnezzar took some of Judah’s elite (including Daniel and his friends) after the Battle of Carchemish.
2. Second Deportation (597 B.C.) – King Jehoiachin and many others were taken to Babylon, including Ezekiel.
3. Final Destruction and Exile (586 B.C.) – Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, and the majority of the population was exiled.
PROPHETS = COVENANT ENFORCEMENT / RESTORATION
Jeremiah 31:31 – 34 31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 3:1-3 "God says, ‘If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and belongs to another man, will he still return to her? Will that land not be completely defiled? But you are a prostitute with many lovers; Yet you turn to Me,’ declares the Lord. ‘Raise your eyes to the bare heights and see; Where have you not been violated? You have sat for them by the roads Like an Arab in the desert, And you have defiled a land With your prostitution and your wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, And there has been no spring rain. Yet you had a prostitute’s forehead; You refused to be ashamed.’”
Jeremiah 3:6-9 "Then the Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah, ‘Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every leafy tree, and she prostituted herself there. Yet I thought, "After she has done all these things, she will return to Me"; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and prostituted herself also. So it was because of the thoughtlessness of her prostitution that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.'"
4rd Reading
What is the character of God?
What is the character of man?
What is their relationship?
Jeremiah 31:20
"Is Ephraim, My dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him."
NEXT WEEK
1. Study Psalm 27
2. Read short article : Covenants of the Bible