Jeremiah 3:1

ISRAEL’S SIN AND PUNISHMENT, Jeremiah 3:1-5.

1. They say Hebrew, to say. This harsh and unusual use of the infinitive has been to interpreters a source of perplexity. Does it mark the beginning of a new discourse, or is it a continuation of the preceding? The former, say Nagelsbach and Ewald; the latter, say Hitzig, Keil, and a majority of the best expositors. And inasmuch as we have at verse six the formal marking of a new discourse, this latter view is clearly to be preferred. And so this infinitive is not to be construed as an initial form, with Jerome, R. Payne Smith, and many others; but as in direct and close dependence on the preceding chapter, thus: “The Lord hath rejected thy confidences”… saying, etc.

Shall he return unto her again A man who had put away his wife was forbidden to take her again if, in the interval, she had been married to another. Deuteronomy 24:1-4.

Yet return… to me Most expositors regard the verb here as an infinitive and the sentence as a question: Will ye return to me? but there is no conclusive reason for this. In the Authorized Version we have a very satisfactory rendering of the Hebrew, and a most impressive illustration of the truth that God’s ways are not as our ways. His wonderful mercy is superior to all human obstructions. Great as is man’s sin, it is not so great as God’s mercy. With this view of the passage agree the Syriac and Vulgate Versions and the Targum.