With respect to the time of the composition, we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the circumstance that, as a rule, Judah appears no less that Israel, already far away from the land of the Lord, in captivity. The Prophet, taking his stand in the time when the catastrophe has already taken place, speaks from an ideal Present. The fact that the destruction of Jerusalem was indeed imminent, and immediately in view, but had not yet taken place, becomes probable even from the inscriptions in chap. xxxii. and xxxiii., according to which these two chapters, which are so closely related to the two before us, belong to the tenth year of Zedekiah, when Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans. This is rendered certain by chap. xxx. 5-7, where the final catastrophe upon the covenant-people, which belongs to the time of Jeremiah, is represented as still impending. Hitherto the threatening had prevailed in the predictions of the Prophet; but now, in the view of their fulfilment, when the thunders of the judgment were already heard from the heavens, the promise flows in full streams. The false prophets had prophesied prosperity and salvation, at a time when, to the human eye, there was no. cause for fear; but Jeremiah just steps forth to announce salvation, at a time when all human hope had vanished.
The Prophet begins, in chap. xxx., with the promise of salvation for _all_ Israel; and after a detailed description, he comprehends and sums it up, in ver. 22, in the words, brief but infinitely rich and comprehensive: "And ye shall be my people [Pg 425] and I will be your God."[1] The majestic close of the promise for the true Israel is, in vers. 23, 24, formed by the threatening against those who are Israel in appearance only,--analogous to the words of Isaiah: "There is no peace to the wicked." Let them not, in their foolish delusion, seize the promise for themselves. The time of the highest blessing for the godly, and for those who are willing to become godly, the אחרית הימים. will be for them, at the same time, a time of the highest curse. The climax of the manifestation of grace has the climax of the manifestation of justice as its inseparable companion. "Behold the storm of the Lord, glowing fire, goeth forth, a _continuing_ storm, on the head of the wicked it shall remain. The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return, until He have done, and until He have performed the intents of His heart; at the end of days ye shall consider it." Formerly, in chap. xxiii. 19, 20, in a threatening prophecy which referred to the exile, the Prophet had uttered the same words. By their verbal repetition, he intimates that the matter was not by any means settled with the exile; that the latter must not be considered as the absolute and final punishment for the sins of the whole nation, but that, as truly as God is Jehovah, so surely His words will revive, as often as the circumstances again exist, to which they originally referred.