Jeremiah 33:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we see, first, when God gave Jeremiah this comforting message. The time is not given exactly, only that it came after the words in the previous chapter, when things were still getting worse. It was the second time God spoke in this way. God speaks once, yes, even twice, to encourage his people. We need not only repeated commands because we are stubborn, but repeated promises because we are slow to trust.

This word came to Jeremiah while he was still in prison, just as the earlier one had. No prison can keep God away from his people. No locks or bars can block his kind visits. Often, the heavier their trouble, the richer their comfort becomes, and they receive their sweetest signs of God’s favor when the world is treating them badly. Paul’s most comforting letters were written from prison.

Second, consider the prophecy itself. It holds a great deal of comfort for the captive people, enough to keep them from despair. The Lord himself secures this promise, the one who made and formed it (Jer 33:2). He is the Maker of heaven and earth, and so all power is in his hands. This also points back to Jeremiah’s prayer in Jer 32:17. He is the Maker of Jerusalem and Zion. He built them at the start, so he can rebuild them. He formed them to stand firm, so they will stand until something greater and unshakable is brought in.

He is also the One who made this promise. He has laid out the plan for Jerusalem’s restoration, and the one who formed it will establish it. The one who made the promise will keep it. Jehovah is his name, and that means the God who gives life and reality to his promises by carrying them out. When he does this, he is known by that name (Exo 6:3). He is a God who brings things to completion. When the heavens and the earth were finished, then, and not until then, the Creator is called Jehovah (Gen 2:4).

How is this comfort to be gained? By prayer (Jer 33:3). “Call to me, and I will answer you.” The prophet had already received some hints of these good intentions, but he must still humbly seek more light from God. He had prayed before (Jer 32:16), and he must pray again. Those who expect comfort from God must keep on praying. We must call on him, and then he will answer.

God says, “I will show you great and mighty things,” meaning things that are clear, full, and far beyond what Jeremiah now knows. These are hidden things, things partly shown already, but not yet understood or fully believed. This may refer not only to the prediction Jeremiah is to receive, if he asks for it, but also to the fulfillment of the promises, which God’s people must pray for. Promises are not meant to replace prayer, but to stir it up and strengthen it (Eze 36:37).

Third, the text shows how sad Jerusalem’s condition was, and why such comfort was needed, even though restoration would still come in God’s time (Jer 33:4, Jer 33:5). The houses of the city, including the houses of the kings of Judah, had been torn down by siege works and by the sword. The strongest and finest houses, the ones best supplied, had been flattened to the ground. The next verse adds another sign of the city’s misery. Those who went out to fight the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, to drive them away, only made things worse. They stirred up the enemy to greater fury, so the houses of Jerusalem were filled with the dead bodies of men who had died in those attacks. God says they were people he had killed in his anger, because the enemy’s sword was his sword, and their anger was his anger.

Yet it seems these men were often those who had especially shown their wickedness. They were among the very people for whose evil God had hidden his face from the city. So God was right in everything he brought upon them. His judgments were just.

Fourth, we are told what blessings God has prepared for Judah and Jerusalem, blessings that will repair all their losses. If their condition is like a disease, even a deadly one, God will heal it completely (Eze 7:22). “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint” (Isa 1:5), but God says, “I will bring it health and healing; I will prevent death, remove the sickness, and put everything right again” (Jer 30:17). No matter how hopeless the case seems, if God takes it in hand, he will heal it. The sin of Jerusalem was its sickness (Isa 1:6), so its recovery must come through reform.

The next words explain how this healing happens: “I will reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth.” He will give it in due time, and he will also give them hope for it before it comes. Here peace stands for every good thing, and peace and truth mean peace according to God’s promise, carried out in faithfulness. It may also mean peace together with true religion, true worship of God, set against the lies and false hopes that had led them away from him.

More broadly, peace and truth are a major part of God’s revelation. These promises point us forward to the gospel of Christ, where God has shown us peace and truth, the way to true peace, truth to guide us, and peace to make us restful. Grace and truth, and an abundance of both, come through Jesus Christ. Peace and truth are life for the soul, and Christ came so that we might have life, and have it more fully. He rules by the power of truth (Joh 18:37), and by it he gives abundant peace (Psa 72:7; Psa 85:10).

God’s revelation of peace and truth brings healing to all who receive it by faith. It heals the soul of the diseases sin has caused, because it is a means of sanctification, or being made holy (Joh 17:17). “He sent his word and healed them” (Psa 107:20). It also brings the soul into good order and keeps it ready for the work and joy of spiritual life.

If they are scattered, enslaved, and their nation lies in ruins, God says, “I will bring back their captives” (Jer 33:7), both Israel and Judah. Though those who returned under Zerubbabel, a Jewish leader who helped bring the exiles back, were mainly from Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, many later returned from the other tribes as well. God says, “I will rebuild them as I built them at first.” When they return to their first obedience through repentance, God will show his first kindness again in restoring them.

Has sin been the cause of all their troubles? Then that sin will be pardoned and broken, and so the root of the judgment will be destroyed (Jeremiah 33:8).

By sin they had become unclean and offensive to God’s holiness, but God will wash them and cleanse them from their sin. In the same way that people who were ceremonially unclean were kept away from the tabernacle, then welcomed back after they were sprinkled with the water of purification, so Israel would be brought back to their land and its blessings once God had cleansed them from their sin. David prays with that same thought in mind, “Purge me with hyssop.”

By sin they had also become guilty and subject to God’s justice, but he will forgive all their sins and remove the punishment they deserved. Everyone who is cleansed from sin’s stain by God’s sanctifying grace, that is, his work of making them holy, is also freed from sin’s guilt by his pardoning mercy.

Have both their sins and their sufferings brought dishonor on God? Then their repentance and restoration will bring him honor instead (Jeremiah 33:9). Jerusalem, rebuilt, and Judah, repopulated, will become a source of joy to God, as pleasing to him as they once were offensive. They will be a praise and honor among all the nations. Restored in this way, they will honor God by their obedience, and he will honor himself by the blessings he gives them.

This renewed nation will give religion a good name, after having brought it shame. The nations will hear about all the good God has done in them by his grace and all the good he has done for them by his providence. The wonders of their return from Babylon will make as much noise in the world as their rescue from Egypt once did. And they will fear and tremble because of all this goodness.

The people of God themselves will fear and tremble. They will be deeply amazed by it, and afraid to offend such a good God or lose his favor (Hosea 3:5). They shall fear the Lord and his goodness. The nearby nations will also fear because of Jerusalem’s prosperity. They will see the growing strength of the Jewish nation as truly threatening, and they will be afraid to make them their enemies. When the church is as fair as the moon and bright as the sun, she is still terrifying like an army with banners.