Written by Ben Guansing
Jeremiah 31:31-34
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Imagine being an Israelite whose country has been handed over to King Nebuchadrezzar. He took your leaders and a number of your people away into captivity to Babylon. The Temple where the people went to meet God has been violated and its contents were also carried off to Babylon. Why? How could God allow this to happen? Let’s look at what Jeremiah had spoken earlier in chapter 2.
For my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Jeremiah 2:13
This is what the Israelites were guilty of a number of times ever since God led them out of slavery in Egypt. It is what Adam and Eve did in the beginning of Genesis. This is what we are all guilty of doing time and time again. It is the natural inclination of our hearts. The default mode of the human condition. If we are honest, we see it in our own hearts and how we choose to live. I see it in my heart and life. The pursuit of different career goals with an “if only…” mindset that in the end didn’t work out, the interests & hobbies to distract myself, the trips to get those social-media photos. Trying hard to be somebody, to make a name for myself. Hey, look at me! If I could just have this or that thing or person, then I’ll be happy and satisfied. We try to minimize the true condition of our hearts or despair over it. However, hope is given by Jeremiah to the Israelites in the midst of their ruin and despair. Let’s break it down.
“Behold, the days are coming, when…”
Look! In the future…God will do this for His people.
“... I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.”
Look at how God describes their relationship! “I took them by the hand…though I was their husband.” A very personal and intimate relationship as husband and wife. Picture a husband rescuing his beloved from a despairing situation, slavery. He takes her by the hand, leading her away to a better place. However, Israel ends up breaking or rejecting the covenant relationship/agreement even though she was rescued from enslavement to Egypt. She forgets.
Have you ever felt forsaken or forgotten by someone close to you? A spouse, a sibling, a friend? Conversely, have you ever forsaken or forgotten anyone?
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Echoed in Ezekiel 11:19-20
“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
“And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD.”
“For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
They did not see how God would bring this about, but we have the privilege of seeing how this promise and hope is fulfilled in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!
Prayer Prompts:
Confess any “cisterns” that you’ve been turning to for personal fulfillment or personal identity instead of Him, the Fountain of Living Waters.
Ask the Holy Spirit to show you how He has written into your heart, how He has taken your heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh. How He does so through the words of Jesus Christ spoken into our hearts. “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
