Commentary - Jeremiah 31:23-26

Bird's-eye view

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, is not a prophet of doom alone. Far from it. He is a short term pessimist because of the rank sin of God's people, but he is a long term, rock ribbed optimist because he knows the character of God. This entire chapter is the mother lode of gospel hope in the Old Testament, containing the promise of the New Covenant. Our passage here, verses 23 through 26, is a sweet and pleasant snapshot of what that restored covenant life looks like on the ground. After decades of prophesying judgment, exile, and the destruction of Jerusalem, the word of Yahweh turns a corner. The promise is one of return and restoration, but it is far more than a mere geographical return. It is a return to righteousness, holiness, satisfaction, and pleasant rest. This is a picture of the gospel taking root in a place and transforming it from the ground up. It is a vision of what Christ accomplishes for His people, a foretaste of the time when the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

The central theme is God's unilateral grace in turning the fortunes of His people. He does not wait for them to clean up their act. He announces that He will act, and the result will be a people and a land transformed. The language is agricultural and pastoral, reminding us that God's redemption is not an ethereal, abstract concept. It results in productive work, peaceful community, and satisfied souls. It is a holistic salvation, and it culminates in the pleasant sleep of the prophet, a personal testimony to the deep rest that comes from seeing and believing the promises of God.

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

This passage sits in what is often called the "Book of Consolation" (Jeremiah 30-33). After relentlessly detailing the covenant infidelity of Judah and the impending judgment from Babylon, the prophetic tone shifts dramatically. God is not finished with His people. The same God who disciplines is the God who will restore. This section is the gospel heart of Jeremiah's message. Specifically, our text follows promises of joyful return from exile and precedes the great declaration of the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31-34). It functions as a concrete illustration of what life under that new covenant blessing will look like. The judgment is real, the exile is coming, but it is not the final word. The final word is grace, restoration, and a righteousness that flows from God Himself, transforming the very land and the people in it.

Key Issues

Verse by Verse Commentary

v. 23 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Once again they will speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities when I return their fortunes, ‘Yahweh bless you, O abode of righteousness, O holy hill!’”

The verse opens with the full weight of divine authority. This is not Jeremiah's wishful thinking; it is a declaration from Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel. He is the commander of heaven's armies and the covenant God who made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His identity is the guarantee of the promise. The promise itself is that a particular phrase, a kind of new national motto, will be spoken again. This will happen when God acts to return their fortunes, a phrase indicating a complete reversal of their state of judgment. He is the one who does the returning. And what will they say? They will look at Jerusalem, at Zion, and say, Yahweh bless you, O abode of righteousness, O holy hill! This is staggering. The city that Jeremiah had condemned as a den of robbers, a place of child sacrifice and idolatry, will be so transformed that its defining characteristic, its very name on the street, will be "abode of righteousness." This is not a humanistic project of self improvement. This is a supernatural work of grace. God does not just bring His people back to a location; He brings them back to righteousness. The gospel does not just change our eternal destination; it changes our character, our communities, our cities.

v. 24 And Judah and all its cities will inhabit it together, the farmer and they who go about with flocks.

The blessing of restoration is not just for the spiritual elites in Jerusalem. It is for all of Judah and all its cities. The result of this divine blessing is unity: they will inhabit it together. The factionalism and strife that characterized Judah's decline will be replaced by a settled peace. And who will be there? The common man. The farmer and the shepherd. This is a picture of a peaceful, stable, and productive society. When God restores a people, He restores their common life. He makes it possible for farmers to plow their fields without fear of invading armies and for shepherds to lead their flocks without them being stolen. True revival is not just a matter of what happens inside a church building for an hour on Sunday. It spills out into the fields and the marketplaces. It creates a society where ordinary people can do their work in peace and for the glory of God. This is a profoundly earthy promise, a postmillennial foretaste of a land where the blessings of the covenant are tangible.

v. 25 For I satisfy the weary soul and fill up every soul who wastes away.

Here is the engine behind the transformation. Why will the land be an abode of righteousness? Why will the people dwell together in productive peace? For I satisfy the weary soul. The word is "I". This is a divine work from start to finish. The weariness spoken of here is the exhaustion that comes from sin, from striving, from fear, from judgment. It is the soul sickness of a people under the curse of the covenant. And God's solution is not to give them a pep talk, but to give them Himself. He provides deep, soul level satisfaction. He doesn't just give them a little water; He fills up the languishing soul. This is the promise of the gospel. Jesus says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This is what that rest looks like when it takes over a whole culture. The deep soul thirst of humanity, which leads to all manner of idolatry and injustice, is quenched by God Himself. A satisfied people are a peaceful and righteous people.

v. 26 At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me.

The scene shifts abruptly from the content of the prophecy to the prophet's personal experience of it. Jeremiah had been receiving this as a vision in his sleep. When he awakes, his immediate reflection is on the quality of his rest. His sleep was pleasant to me. This is a beautiful and intimate conclusion. For years, Jeremiah's job had been to deliver messages that brought him grief, conflict, and persecution. His soul was acquainted with sorrow. But this vision of God's future grace is so potent, so certain, and so sweet that it transforms his very sleep. Believing the promises of God brings deep rest to the soul. When we truly grasp the glorious future that God has ordained for His people, a future of righteousness, peace, and satisfaction in Him, it settles our anxieties. It gives us a profound sense of well being, even in the midst of present troubles. The long term optimism of the gospel is not just a theological position; it is a soft pillow for a weary head.

Application

The central application for us is to believe that the gospel has this kind of transformative power. We are not hunkered down in a bunker, waiting for the world to get bad enough for Jesus to come and rescue us from it. We are agents of the kingdom, armed with the same promises Jeremiah saw. Our task is to live and proclaim the gospel that turns cities into abodes of righteousness.

This means we must first recognize that the deep weariness in our own souls, and in the souls of our neighbors, can only be satisfied by God. All our cultural freneticism, our political rage, our desperate pursuits of distraction, are the signs of a soul that is "wasting away." The only answer is the satisfaction that God provides in Christ. We must drink deeply from that well ourselves, and then point others to it.

Furthermore, we should labor for the kind of society pictured here. We should work for unity, for justice, and for a culture where farmers and shepherds, software engineers and baristas, can do their work peaceably to the glory of God. This is not utopianism; it is simply taking God at His word. He has promised to bless His people in this comprehensive way. Our job is to pray for it, work toward it, and expect it. And as we do, as we see by faith the holy hill that God is building, we too will find that our sleep is pleasant to us. The promises of God are our peace and our rest.