Commentary - Jeremiah 31:18-20

Bird's-eye view

This brief passage in Jeremiah is one of the most potent and tender descriptions of repentance and restoration in all of Scripture. It is a perfect diptych, a two-panel painting of the gospel. On one side, we have Ephraim, representing the covenant people, finally coming to his senses. He acknowledges God's sovereign and painful discipline, confesses his own rebellious nature, and cries out for God to do the work of restoration that he cannot do for himself. This is a portrait of true, God-wrought repentance. On the other side, we see God's response. It is not the cold calculation of a judge, but the overflowing, emotional, heartfelt yearning of a father for his lost son. God hears the faintest cry of repentance and responds with an unshakeable promise of compassion. This passage reveals the divine initiative in our salvation from start to finish: God chastens, God grants repentance, and God lavishes compassion.

In short, these three verses contain the whole movement of the Christian life. We are the untrained calf, fighting the yoke. God, in His mercy, breaks us through chastisement. He then grants us the grace to see our sin and to cry out for Him to restore us. And when we do, we find not an angry taskmaster, but a loving Father running to meet us on the road, His heart yearning to show us mercy. This is the story of the prodigal son, told centuries before Christ told it.

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

Jeremiah 31 is located in the very center of what is often called the "Book of Consolation" (Jeremiah 30-33). After chapter upon chapter of searing indictments and prophecies of doom against Judah, the tone shifts dramatically. God, through His prophet, begins to lay out His plan for restoration after the Babylonian exile. But this restoration is not merely political or geographical. It is a deep, spiritual, covenantal renewal. This section contains the famous promise of the New Covenant (Jer 31:31-34), where God promises to write His law on His people's hearts and forgive their iniquity completely. Our passage (vv. 18-20) provides the intimate, psychological, and spiritual mechanism of how this renewal happens. It shows us what it looks like when a sinner's heart is turned back to God, and what God's heart looks like as He turns to His repentant child. It is the personal experience of the New Covenant promise.

Key Issues

The Untrained Calf and the Yearning Father

There are two dominant images in this text, and they are set in beautiful opposition. The first is Ephraim's picture of himself: an "untrained calf." This is an animal that is full of raw, rebellious energy. It kicks against the goads, it fights the yoke, it refuses to be tamed. It wants its own way, and it resists the farmer's every attempt to make it useful. This is a perfect picture of the unregenerate sinner, and indeed, of the rebellious believer. We fight God's providence, we hate His law which feels like a burdensome yoke, and we buck against His discipline.

The second image is of God as a yearning Father. The language used to describe God's reaction is astonishingly emotional and visceral. His "inmost being" (sometimes translated as bowels or womb) yearns for his son. This is not a detached, stoic deity. This is the Father of the prodigal, whose love is not extinguished by his son's rebellion. The entire gospel is suspended between these two images: the wild, stupid calf finally broken by discipline, and the loving, compassionate Father who was waiting all along to welcome him home.

Verse by Verse Commentary

18 I have surely heard Ephraim grieving, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, Like an untrained calf; Cause me to return that I may return, For You are Yahweh my God.

The scene opens with God speaking. He has been listening. God always hears, but here He has heard something specific and precious: the sound of genuine grief. This is not the whining of a child who got caught, but the sorrow of a son who has broken his father's heart. Ephraim's confession begins with a crucial acknowledgment: "You have chastised me, and I was chastised." He doesn't blame circumstances. He doesn't blame Babylon. He sees the sovereign hand of God in his affliction, and he accepts it as deserved discipline. He understands that his suffering is not random; it is the purposeful action of his God. The image of the untrained calf is a confession of his own untamed, rebellious nature. He was fighting the yoke, and God had to break him. And out of this brokenness comes the most important prayer in the Bible: "Cause me to return that I may return." This is the cry of a man who understands his own inability. He knows he cannot repent on his own. He knows that true turning is a gift of sovereign grace. His only hope is for God to do the work in him. The basis of his appeal is covenantal: "For You are Yahweh my God." He is appealing to God's own character and promises.

19 For after I turned away, I repented; And after I was instructed, I slapped my thigh; I was ashamed and also dishonored Because I bore the reproach of my youth.’

Ephraim continues to unpack the anatomy of his repentance. The sequence here is theologically critical. Some translations render the first clause "after that I was turned, I repented." This captures the spirit of it perfectly. God's action of turning him precedes his act of repenting. Repentance is the fruit of regeneration, not the cause of it. This turning is accompanied by instruction; "after I was instructed." True repentance is not a vague feeling; it is rooted in the truth of God's Word. The Spirit uses the Word to show us our sin. The response to this instruction is visceral grief: "I slapped my thigh." This was an ancient gesture of extreme anguish and remorse, the equivalent of beating one's breast. It is the outward sign of a heart broken over its sin. This grief is composed of shame and dishonor. He is ashamed because he has sinned against a holy God, and he is dishonored because he sees the ugliness of his own actions. He recognizes that this is not a new problem; he "bore the reproach of his youth." He sees the long, ugly pattern of his rebellion stretching back through his history.

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; Therefore My inmost being yearns for him; I will surely have compassion on him,” declares Yahweh.

Now the camera turns from earth to heaven, and we hear God's response. It is breathtaking. He doesn't begin by saying, "It's about time." He begins with questions of tender, fatherly affection. "Is this not my dear son? Is this not the child in whom I delight?" The questions are rhetorical, expressing God's deep, abiding love that was there even during the rebellion. God then acknowledges His own disciplinary action: "as often as I have spoken against him." The judgments were real. The rebukes were necessary. But those words of judgment did not erase the son from the father's heart. "I certainly still remember him." This is not a memory of facts, but a covenantal remembrance. God remembers His promises. He remembers His relationship. And this remembrance leads to an outpouring of emotion. "Therefore My inmost being yearns for him." The Hebrew here is incredibly strong, referring to the deepest part of a person. God's heart is moved. His love is not a cold, abstract principle; it is a passionate, yearning love. The conclusion is therefore an absolute certainty: "I will surely have compassion on him." The Hebrew construction is emphatic. It is a promise as solid as God Himself. This is the heart of the gospel.

Application

This passage is a map for every lost sinner and every wandering saint. First, it teaches us how to view our hardships. When life is difficult, when we are suffering, our first question should not be "Why is this happening to me?" but rather, "Lord, are you chastising me?" We must learn to see the loving, disciplinary hand of our Father in our trials, designed to break our rebellious, calf-like nature.

Second, it teaches us how to pray for repentance. We do not try to drum up feelings of sorrow. We do not try to turn over a new leaf by our own strength. We pray the prayer of Ephraim: "Cause me to return, and I shall return." We confess our utter inability and cast ourselves entirely on the sovereign grace of God to do in us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Finally, and most importantly, this passage teaches us about the character of the God to whom we pray. We do not come to a reluctant deity who must be persuaded to love us. We come to a Father whose inmost being already yearns for us. Our repentance does not create His compassion; it is the key that unlocks the floodgates of a compassion that has been there all along. Our confidence is not in the quality of our grief, but in the quality of His grace. He has declared, "I will surely have compassion," and that declaration is sealed in the blood of His truly dear and delightful Son, Jesus Christ, who bore our shame and reproach so that we could be welcomed into the Father's embrace.