Jeremiah 31:10, 11 says,
10 Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare in the coastlands afar off, and say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.” 11 For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.
God always took credit for the exile and diaspora of Israel in the land of Assyria. Keep in mind that these were the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel, not the two tribes of the southern kingdom of Judah. One should not misapply this by teaching that God’s redemption of Israel refers to the modern Jewish state. The so-called lost tribes of Israel are the ones being gathered.
Yet it is not all of these ex-Israelites of the dispersion who are to be gathered, for Paul makes it clear in Romans 11:1-7 that only the remnant fulfills this prophecy, and, in fact, it is through their faith and not their genealogy. To return is not about returning to the old land but of returning to God and finding the “better country” sought by Abraham.
If we go back to the end of Jeremiah 31:8, the Septuagint reads, “they will return to the feast of Passover.” The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Old Testament translated by 70 rabbis beginning in 280 B.C. The Hebrew text that was used to translate this verse leaves off “to the feast of Passover,” yet the Septuagint shows the rabbinic understanding of what it means to “return.”
If we view this with New Covenant eyes, where Passover was fulfilled by Jesus’ death on the cross to redeem humanity, we can understand this to mean that returning to God through Passover is to accept the sacrifice of Christ. The rabbis translating the Septuagint had no idea how Passover would be fulfilled, but once Christ fulfilled it, its meaning became apparent.
The Shepherd
Verse 10 tells us that He will “keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.” Jesus Christ said in John 10:11,
11 I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
It was His blood that paid the redemption price, not only for Israel but for the whole world (John 3:16; 1 John 2:2).
Hebrews 13:20 adds,
20 Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal [aionian, “age abiding”] covenant, even Jesus our Lord.
Christ was not raised from the dead through the Old Covenant, which was temporary (Hebrews 8:13), but through the New Covenant.
The New Name
Before God sent Israel out of the house, exiling her to Assyria, He gave her a bill of divorce (Jeremiah 3:8) as required by the law (Deuteronomy 24:1). She was then stripped of the name Israel, because her lawlessness and faithlessness did not reflect the testimony of that title. But the remnant of grace, God’s true chosen servants, were to be called by “another name” (Isaiah 65:15).
Again, Isaiah 62:2 says, “you will be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will designate.” It seems that God did not tell the prophet what that “new name” was. That was left to future prophets and to the public at large who witnessed the fulfillment of the prophecy. The new name, in fact, was bound up in Isaiah’s own name, for his name was derived from Yeshua, Jesus’ Hebrew name. Both names mean salvation.
Believers carry the name of Jesus Christ, and the world came to know them as Christians. Revelation 22:4 says,
4 They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.
“His name” is the name of Jesus Christ. This is the “new name” given to the true Israelites who “return” to God.
Redeemed from a Stronger One
Jeremiah 31:11 says that “Jacob” was to be redeemed “from the hand of him who was stronger than he.” This literally took place in the story of Jacob and Esau. At that time Esau was militarily much stronger than Jacob, but God delivered him. That incident took place while Jacob was returning to Canaan from the land of Syria.
Jacob’s exile to Syria and his labor under Laban was a type and shadow of Israel’s exile to Assyria. His return was a type of Israel’s return to God. Jacob had fled to Syria, but he returned as Israel.
The longer captivity to Assyria was to last “seven times,” or 7 x 360 years. (See my book, Daniel’s Seventy Weeks.) Judah’s 70-year Babylonian captivity also continued for “seven times,” timed by the four beast empires in Daniel 7. These captivities have now ended (progressively), and the final endpoint occurred in 2017. If we include the story of the conquest of Canaan and see this as another type and shadow of the subjugation of the nations to the Kingdom of God, the great endpoint after 70 Jubilees comes to the year 2024.
Hence, it appears (to me) that 2024 is when we will be redeemed “from the hand of him who was stronger.” The world system, called Mystery Babylon, has been stronger than the remnant of grace, but God is revealing His power to the nations under Babylon even as He did to Esau and his army. Hence, we are seeing (even now) how former officials of Babylon’s world government are being turned into friends. They are helping us to build the Kingdom.
The ultimate redemption, of course, is the redemption of the body (Romans 8:23) and from the bondage of sin brought about through the sin of Adam. In my view, this great redemption is timed, in some way, to the end of the great Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. In other words, the fulfillment of the Autumn feasts of the Lord is imminent. In fact, Jacob’s wilderness journey to Syria was marked by events and places that correspond to the feast days.
Jacob’s wilderness journey climaxed with his name being changed to Israel (Genesis 32:28), followed by his settlement in Sukkoth (Genesis 33:17). Sukkoth is also the feast of Tabernacles. It is also of interest that the Israelites under Moses began their journey from Succoth, or Sukkoth (Exodus 12:37). With Jacob, his journey ended at Sukkoth. Sukkoth is of paramount importance to us today, even though it is largely unknown in churches today that know only about Passover and Pentecost.
The point is that God is about to redeem the chosen remnant—the true Israelites—from the final enemy (death) that has been stronger than us. God’s redemption started with types and shadows—Esau and Assyria—but it ends with Sukkoth and the redemption of our body.
Redemption Brings Rejoicing
Jeremiah 31:12 says,
12 They will come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, and they will be radiant [nahar] over the bounty of the Lord—over the grain and the new wine and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; and their life will be like a watered garden, and they will never languish again.
Zion, David’s house, was a type and shadow of Mount Sion (Hermon), the Mount of Christ’s Transfiguration. We no longer go to Zion but to Sion (Deuteronomy 4:48; Hebrews 12:22 KJV), where the voice of God pronounced Jesus to be “My beloved Son” (Matthew 17:5). We rally around Him there in order to receive the status as the sons of God. Those who seek Him at the Zion of the earthly Jerusalem will be disappointed, for Galatians 4:25 and 30 tells us that Hagar-Jerusalem and her children must be “cast out.”
In Jesus’ day Mount Sion represented the seat of Christ’s authority in the heavenly Jerusalem. The rejoicing, then, must come on a mount greater than Zion. Those who find Him in Sion will not be disappointed. It is said that “they will be radiant.” The Hebrew word is nahar, “to sparkle, to be cheerful, to shine, to beam.” Is this not a prophecy of the fulfillment of Tabernacles, where the remnant receives the glorified body? Those who go to Sukkoth, i.e., fulfill the feast of Tabernacles, “will never languish again.”
Jeremiah 31:13 continues,
13 Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together, for I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort [naham] them and give them joy for their sorrow.
Joy of this kind comes from the Comforter (John 14:26), which is the Holy Spirit, promised in Isaiah 40:1, “Comfort, O comfort My people.” These words launch Isaiah’s prophecies of the New Covenant and the restoration of Israel. It is the turning point from “slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).
Jeremiah 31:14 concludes,
14 “I will fill the soul of the priests with abundance, and My people will be satisfied with My goodness,” declares the Lord.
Because this is a New Covenant promise, we cannot interpret this as a promise to Aaronic priests of Levi. Levi has been replaced by an older priesthood, the Order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:11, 12. It is no longer a requirement that a priest be from the tribe of Levi, for Jesus—the high priest—came of the tribe of Judah. So also we, as priests under Christ’s authority, have no requirement to trace our genealogy to Levi or to anyone other than to God Himself, for we are sons of God. We have been begotten by God through the Holy Spirit.
These are part of the new priesthood under the New Covenant. To them is the promise of the first resurrection. Revelation 20:6 says that “they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.” Those who teach that Christ will return to a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem (“Hagar”), ministered by priests of Levi offering animal sacrifices in the age to come, seem to forget that the Melchizedek Order is “forever” (Hebrews 7:17).
The New Covenant was not an interim covenant sandwiched between two eras of Old Covenant dominion. The New Covenant will not end with an Old Covenant Levitical priesthood being reestablished for the ages to come. Those who teach such things have an Old Covenant view of prophecy. Because they believe that this is the promise of God, they testify without realizing it that they still remain partially blind by the Old Covenant veil (2 Corinthians 3:14, 15), even while claiming otherwise.
God will sort it all out, of course, for He knows each heart. But we do know from Jeremiah 31 that the redeemed ones will rejoice and the Melchizedek priests will receive “abundance.”
