Jeremiah 3:21-22

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Jeremiah 3:20-25

Here is, I. The charge God exhibits against Israel for their treacherous departures from him, Jer. 3:20. As an adulterous wife elopes from her husband, so have they gone a whoring from God. They were joined to God by a marriage-covenant, but they broke that covenant, they dealt treacherously with God, who had always dealt kindly and faithfully with them. Treacherous dealing with men like ourselves is bad enough, but to deal treacherously with God is to deal treasonably. II. Their conviction... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Jeremiah 3:21

A voice was heard upon the high places ,.... And so might be heard afar off; it shows that the repentance and confession of the Jews, when convinced and converted, will be very public, and made upon those places where they have committed their sins; see Jeremiah 2:20 , for this and the following verses declare the humiliation, repentance, and conversion of the Jews, and the manner in which they shall be brought to it, and be openly put among the children: weeping and supplications of... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Jeremiah 3:22

Return, ye backsliding children ,.... This is the call of the Jews to repentance in the latter day; See Gill on Jeremiah 3:14 . and I will heal your backslidings ; that is, I will forgive your sins. Sins are the diseases of the soul, and the wounds made in it; and pardoning them is healing them. So the Targum, "I will forgive you when ye return;' see Psalm 103:3 , this is done by the application of the blood of Christ, the only physician, and whose blood is the balm that heals... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Jeremiah 3:21

A voice was heard upon the high places - Here the Israelites are represented as assembled together to bewail their idolatry and to implore mercy. While thus engaged, they hear the gracious call of Jehovah: - read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Jeremiah 3:22

Return, ye backsliding children - This they gladly receive, and with one voice make their confession to him: "Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art Jehovah our God;" and thence to the end of the chapter, show the reasons why they return unto God. Because he is the true God. Because the idols did not profit them: they could give no help in time of trouble. Because it is the prerogative of God alone to give salvation. Because they had no kind of prosperity since they had abandoned... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Jeremiah 3:21

Verse 21 What I have stated becomes now more evident, — that the case of the Israelites is here set before the Jews, that the perverse, whom God had spared, might know that the same punishment impended over them, except they returned in due time to him: for the Prophet declares, that the Israelites were weeping and in tears, because they had departed from their God, and violated their faith pledged to him. For what purpose did he do this? That the Jews, who indulged themselves in their own... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Jeremiah 3:22

Verse 22 God here exhorts the Israelites to repent, that by their example he might move the Jews. The benefit of what is here taught might indeed have reached to the miserable captives and exiles; but as Jeremiah was especially the teacher of his own nation, he labored chiefly no doubt for their advantage, as we have before stated. God then here declares, that he would be reconcilable to the Israelites, how grievously soever they had sinned, he afterwards introduces them as answering, Behold,... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Jeremiah 3:1-25

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Jeremiah 3:21

Another of those rapid transitions so common in emotional writing like Jeremiah's. The prophet cannot bear to dwell upon the backsliding of his people. He knows the elements of good which still survive, and by faith sees them developed, through the teaching of God's good providence, into a fruitful repentance. How graphic is the description! On the very high places (or rather, bare , treeless heights or downs , as verse 2) where a licentious idolatry used to be practiced, a sound is... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Jeremiah 3:21

A sincere repentance in an appropriate place. How came this voice to be heard on the high places—this weeping and this supplication? The answer seems to lie in Jeremiah 3:20 , where there is interposed a suggestion that Israel, because of its past defections, would fail to prove capable and worthy of that glorious future which has been just depicted. How then can Israel reply except by an abundant outflow of the signs of penitence? There is weeping; there is deprecation of any such... read more

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