Vers. 11-13 describe the internal condition of the redeemed Church of the future,--a condition so different from the present one. The expression, "they that proudly rejoice in them," is from Is. xiii. 3. כי in ver. 13 is to be accounted for from the fact, that wherever there exists the blessing promised by the Law of God (Lev. xxvi. 6) to faithfulness, faithfulness itself must exist.
In ver. 14 ff., the Jerusalem of the future is addressed; compare the expression, "at that time," ver. 20.
In Malachi iii. 1, the Lord promises that He would send His messenger who should prepare the way before _Him_, who was to come to His temple, judging and punishing; vers. 23, 24 (iv. 5, 6): that before the coming of His great and dreadful day, before He smites the land with a curse, He would send another Elijah, who should bring back the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers. Even before this prophecy was expressed in words, it had _actually_ been given in the existence of Jeremiah, who, during the whole long period of forty-one years, before the destruction, announced the judgments of the Lord,--who, with burning zeal and ardent love to the people, preached repentance,--and who, even after the destruction, sought the small remnant that had been left, and was anxious to secure it against the new day of the Lord, which, by its obstinate impenitence, it was drawing down upon itself. It is this typical relation of Jeremiah to John the Baptist and Christ, of which the Jewish tradition had an anticipation, although it misunderstood and expressed it in a gross, outward manner, by teaching that, at the end of days, Jeremiah would again appear on earth,--it is this, which invests with a peculiar charm the contemplation of his ministry, and the study of his prophecies.
The name of the Prophet is to be explained from Exod. xv. 1, from which it is probably taken. It signifies "The Lord throws." He who bore it was consecrated to that God who with an almighty hand throws to the ground all His enemies. From chap. i. 10: "See, I set thee to-day over the nations [Pg 363] and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant," it appears that it was by a dispensation of divine providence, that the Prophet bore this name with full right, and that the character of his mission is thereby designated. The judging and destructive activity which the Prophet, as an instrument of God, is to exercise, is here not only placed at the commencement, but four appellations are also devoted to it, whilst only two are devoted to his healing and planting activity. As the object of the _throwing_, we have to conceive, not of the unfaithful covenant-people only. This appears from the mention of the _nations and kingdoms_ here, and farther, from ver. 14, where the Lord says to the Prophet: "Out of the North the evil breaks forth upon all the inhabitants of the earth." To be the herald of the judgment to be executed upon the whole world by the Chaldeans, was so much the destiny of the Prophet, that, in chap. i. 3, the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in which this judgment was brought to a close, as far as Judah was concerned, is mentioned as the closing point of his ministry. The Prophet, as is reported by the book itself, still continued his ministry even among the remnant of the people; but that is lost sight of The "carrying away of Jerusalem" is treated as the great closing point; just as, in a manner altogether similar, it is, in the case of Daniel, in chap. i. 21, the year of Israel's deliverance, although, according to chap. x. 1, his prophetic ministry extended beyond that period.