Jeremiah (1-31) 3:22 Commentary and Bible Study

There is this solemn appeal: ‘Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.’ God commands them to get real, to stop their half-hearted approaches to him. This is the only way they are going to see his real blessing. He calls them what they are – backsliding children, for the first step in their return to him is to acknowledge their true state. There has been so much pretence in their false approach to God. We must see ourselves as the Lord sees us.‘Behold, we come unto thee’ – and it seems that God inspires Jeremiah to teach them a model prayer of repentance. Here it is. ‘We come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.’ This is how they should go about it. They never did, but this is how it should have been done.First there is sincere confession of sin. ‘Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains.’ There is an admission that our ways have not profited us and that the false path we chose for ourselves has led nowhere. We trusted our idols, they are to admit, but now we renounce our trust in them.’ It was foolishness and it only exposed our shame. We will stop provoking the Lord any further, and we will do it the Lord's way. ‘Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.’ We will not two-time the Lord any further but put away deceit from our hearts and approach him as he has commanded – with all our hearts.‘For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers.’ In other words, we have had droughts and the crops have failed, and the land has become impoverished, because of our sin. Even from our youth, for a long time, flocks, herds, everything has failed. The people laboured in the fields and their labour might have been expected to produce a good harvest, but it came to nothing because the Lord intervened to prevent it. He reserved for himself the role of the one who blesses his people or not, and because of their idolatry he frustrated all their efforts and brought them to nothing.‘We lie down in our shame,’ – we are ashamed; repentance knows shame – ‘and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.’