Call to Me and I Will Answer
1 Moreover Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was still locked up in the court of the guard, saying, 2 “Yahweh who does it, Yahweh who forms it to establish it—Yahweh is his name, says: 3 ‘Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great and difficult things, which you don’t know.’ 4 For Yahweh, the God of Israel, says concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down to make a defense against the mounds and against the sword: 5 ‘While men come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have killed in my anger and in my wrath, and for all whose wickedness I have hidden my face from this city, 6 behold, I will bring it health and healing, and I will cure them; and I will reveal to them abundance of peace and truth. 7 I will restore the fortunes of Judah and Israel, and will build them as at the first. 8 I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against me and by which they have transgressed against me. 9 This city will be to me for a name of joy, for praise, and for glory, before all the nations of the earth, which will hear all the good that I do to them, and will fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I provide to it.’” 10 Yahweh says: “Yet again there will be heard in this place, about which you say, ‘It is waste, without man and without animal, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without animal,’ 11 the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, ‘Give thanks to Yahweh of Armies, for Yahweh is good, for his loving kindness endures forever;’ who bring thanksgiving into Yahweh’s house. For I will cause the captivity of the land to be reversed as at the first,” says Yahweh. 12 Yahweh of Armies says: “Yet again there will be in this place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. 13 In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, in the cities of the South, in the land of Benjamin, in the places around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, the flocks will again pass under the hands of him who counts them,” says Yahweh.
A second word in the same cell offers to show him things he does not know, and every sound the judgment silenced is named again and given back.
The location is repeated deliberately: while he was still locked up in the court of the guard. Against that the invitation is issued: Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great and difficult things, which you don't know. The offer is made to a man whose freedom has been taken and whose city is finished. What it promises is not release but information. Two words in the same confinement establish that the cell has not interrupted anything.
What is happening outside is described in a detail no other passage gives. The houses of the city and of the kings are being pulled down to make a defense against the siege mounds. Jerusalem is demolishing its own homes for rubble to plug the breaches. It is a city consuming itself to survive one more week, and the corpses are described as filling the spaces that work created.
Into that comes a promise that answers, term for term, the diagnosis the book has been repeating. The wound was incurable and there were no medicines Jeremiah 30:12–13; here God says I will bring it health and healing, and I will cure them. The sin was engraved with an iron pen. Here he says he will cleanse and pardon all of it. And the city that was to be a curse among the nations becomes a name of joy, praise and glory before them. The nations tremble — not at the judgment, but at all the good and all the peace provided to it.
The restoration is then measured by sound, and the list is exact. What was taken away was the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride Jeremiah 7:34. What is given back is the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. The same four, in order, with one addition — the voices of people bringing thanksgiving into the house of Yahweh and saying that his loving kindness endures forever. And after the weddings, the shepherds. Flocks lie down again in the waste places and pass under the hand of the man who counts them. Nothing spectacular is promised. Somebody counting sheep in a field is the proof that the country is alive.
settled What this mark means