Jeremiah (1-31) 31:18 Commentary and Bible Study

These verses teach us the great pity God has for his people, pity that moves him to bring about their restoration. Ephraim, representing the ten northern tribes, had gone into exile at the time of the fall of Samaria, when the Assyrians who conquered them carried them away and brought people from other nations to live in their land. The situation seemed unrecoverable. Ephraim is pictured as acknowledging her sin and the justice of the Lord’s chastisement of the nation. She had not acknowledged her sin, but the prophet shows what she ought to do. She had behaved like a young bullock that was unwilling to have a yoke placed over her shoulders in order to do work. As a bullock might fight against the yoke, so Ephraim admits that she had resisted the Lord’s rule over her, and brought his heavy hand upon her in that severe discipline. But now she is viewed as being in a better frame of mind. Matthew Poole quotes Leviticus 26:40-42 in connection with this. ‘Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God.’ It is very appropriately used as a gospel text. The speaker has come to a point of complete submission to the Lord, acknowledging that God has the power by his Spirit to control the will and enlighten the mind and the affections, and that his work is always efficacious. What God does will not be left half done but will accomplish exactly what he intends. The speaker prays that God would work in their case, turning them back into his way with the result that their minds cease to fight against him and like the bullock that has learnt to wear the yoke, they can be guided wherever he wishes them to go. Having been turned, the mind has become clear so that the previous rebellion is admitted with shame. Ephraim is now instructed and the result is deep regret that he ever behaved as he did, so that he strikes his own thigh as a token of this regret and shame. Even after the Lord has turned his heart, he still remembers the record of his past behaviour and mourns over past sin. The memory of the past has this beneficial effect on him. ‘Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD.’ As Matthew Poole says, this is not intended to deny that Ephraim is God’s son, or to teach that he has been rejected. That would go against all the other sentiments in the passage, which are full of hope. We would render the words, ‘Is not Ephraim my dear son?’ God has sternly punished him, but there is still pity in his heart, and he will yet show him favour.