Jeremiah (1-31) 3:14 Commentary and Bible Study

But then begins the prophecy, and it's a tremendous prophetic passage. Turning is defined in terms of owning your iniquity, your transgression, your making gods out of everything on earth, and your refusal to obey the voice of God. It is summed up here: ‘Turn, O backsliding children [apostate children who have rejected the truth], saith the LORD; for I am married unto you.’ ‘And I will take you, one of a city.’ Not many; this is a very small remnant. The figures won't be literal. This will be a general announcement, which indicates that God will have mercy on a small number. One of a city and two of a family – that actually means a clan, not a tribe; more than that, but a subdivision, a subfamily within a tribe. ‘One of a city, two of a clan, and I will bring you to Zion.’ Now this is a promise that at some future time when there is true repentance, a remnant shall be saved, a number should be saved. Not the whole number of Israel, but some of them.But then prophecy begins and the prophet moves into the future. ‘And I will give you pastors according to mine heart which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.’ The priesthood is going to be abolished, and you can see this is moving into the New Testament age. ‘And it shall come to pass, when you be multiplied and increased in the land, and there will be a great wave of blessing in the new age. Now when might this prophecy have been fulfilled? We going to read more of it in just a moment. At what stage? Well, it would have been fulfilled in a small way even with the return of Judah from Babylon, with the remnant that returned from Babylonian captivity. (There may also have been a number of people from the former kingdom of Israel, who found their way back to Jerusalem too, though there is no solid information about that.) But that return from exile could not be the complete fulfilment, because we know nothing for certain about the involvement of the northern tribes in the return of the exiles, and this prophecy is primarily addressed to Israel. That was a return from captivity of a remnant of the southern kingdom of Judah. Certainly there were some good pastors given to them. They had Ezra for a start; they had Nehemiah who wasn't exactly a pastor, he was a politician. Even so, he was far better as a pastor than many of the regular pastors. Then too they had quite a few good levites. We know that from the part played by the levites in the restored worship, while Nehemiah was in Jerusalem. So there was a small degree of fulfilment, even with the return from Babylon to Judah and Jerusalem. But nothing like the fulfilment of the promise, the prophecy, as it is given here. ‘I will give you pastors, according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.’ This would be a fulfilled prophecy later than the return from Babylon. Some people say this is all about a future millennium, but in a future millennium we will not need pastors according to God's own heart. This is what happens with the coming of Christ. ‘And they will feed you with knowledge and understanding, and you will be multiplied and increased in the land’, and nobody will worry anymore about the symbols, because we have the reality; we have Christ.