“‘It shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,’ declares the LORD, ‘they will no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of the LORD.” And it will not come to mind, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made again. At that time they will call Jerusalem “The Throne of the LORD,” and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the name of the LORD; nor will they walk anymore after the stubbornness of their evil heart'” (Jer 3:16-17).
The book of Jeremiah is, for the most part, filled with sermons of judgment that the prophet preached to the people of Israel over the course of forty years. But throughout the book, the author suddenly and unexpectedly splices in promises of Israel’s glorious future. Jeremiah 3:16–17 is one of many verses that illuminate the total darkness of the surrounding context, seasoning a mostly bitter book with flavors of hope.
These splices of promise in the midst of judgment are there to remind us that the purpose of the book is not to beat us over the head for all our failures, but to reveal God’s readiness to forgive and restore us through the giving of a new and better covenant.
What is going on here? Is this just poor editing, or part and parcel of the author’s compositional strategy?
We must look to the introduction of the book to gain a clear sense of its overall purpose and message. In the opening verses, the author explicitly tells the reader that Jeremiah preached “until the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month” (Jer 1:3). In other words, we begin reading the book with full knowledge that Israel failed to heed Jeremiah’s warnings of judgment.
So why did the author include these oracles of judgment if they were no longer relevant to the exilic and post-exilic readers of the book? Because the purpose of the book of Jeremiah is not to urge its readers to keep the Sinai Covenant lest they go into exile—they’ve already been exiled. Rather, it is to remind us how completely and thoroughly we and our forefathers broke the Sinai Covenant, and how good God is that, despite our sin, he is going to give us a new one.
These splices of promise in the midst of judgment are there to remind us that the purpose of the book is not to beat us over the head for all our failures, but to reveal God’s readiness to forgive and restore us through the giving of a new and better covenant.
