Jeremiah (1-31) 23:5 Commentary and Bible Study

The King James translators have quite rightly put a capital B on the word ‘Branch’, because it is clearly referring to the divine Saviour. You can see the prophecy here has broadened out. Now it is quite plainly embracing the coming of Christ and the gospel age. ‘And a King’ – with a capital K – ‘shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgement and justice in the earth’, and will ultimately be the judge of all: Christ Jesus our Lord. It is the God man, Jesus Christ. ‘And shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.’ Now you may ask, is it just possible that Jeremiah was misled? Is it possible that Jeremiah saw a day coming when a great earthly king would arise in the Hebrew tradition? In his desire to see his people set at liberty and no longer under the oppression of the Chaldean kingdoms, might it be that his desire for those things got on top of him, and he could just see this king arising, who would have the power to deliver them? Could it be that we are wrenching things too far in calling this prophecy for a king, a prophecy about the coming of the Messiah? Or was he speaking truly under the inspiration of the Spirit of God? Of course, we believe he was speaking under inspiration, and verse 6 confirms it. Speaking of the righteous King, the second part of verse 6 reads: ‘And this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’, the one who will offer up his own perfect spotless righteousness to earn and secure heaven for all those who trust in him, and the one who shall make a substitutionary atoning death for sin on their behalf at the same time. We depend upon his atoning death and we depend upon his offered-up righteousness. If you have a margin, you will find that the Hebrew there, ‘the Lord’, is none other than Jehovah: Jehovah our righteousness, the name of God. So the English translation, ‘the Lord’, tends to weaken it a little. The point here is this that Jeremiah knew perfectly well that he was making, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, a spiritual prophecy. He wasn't speaking now about a great earthly king, who would arise in the Hebrew tradition, and would put everything right, and would take off the yoke of the oppressor and set up an earthly Jewish kingdom. He was talking about the coming of God himself in the flesh. A great Messiah would raise under David (verse 5), a righteous Branch. There it is again, the promise of the Scripture, that the Lord would come and he would be descended after the flesh from the line of David. He would come as a man, and yet he would be a King. He would be God man, the Lord, our righteousness, and this great promise that his righteousness would be imputed to his people. But this is also a picture of restoration. The first part of verse 6: ‘In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.’ Something totally new is going to happen. Something totally different. There will be a coming together of Judah and Israel; not necessarily every member of them – remember this is all in the context of speaking about a remnant – but many of them. The Israelites looked forward to the day when the ten tribes and Judah would one day be reunited. It seemed impossible for now. Samaria had long since fallen, and the ten northern tribes had gone into captivity; it seemed impossible that this should ever happen. But here it is: ‘In his days’ – the days of the righteous branch – ‘Judah and Israel shall be together.’ That is to say that people descended from Israel and people descended from Judah will be among saved Jews, united with saved Gentiles, and there will be one church of Christ. In that way the prophecy will be fulfilled.