Jeremiah 30:3

For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah . . .—The oracle of Jeremiah 29:10-14 becomes, as it were, the text of a new utterance, and that with a wider range more distinctly including the ten tribes of Israel as well as the two of Judah and Benjamin. There is no narrow provincialism in the prophet’s heart. He yearns for the exiles who are far off on the Euphrates; he yearns also for those who are yet farther in Assyria and the cities of the Medes (2Kings 17:6).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

30:1-11 Jeremiah is to write what God had spoken to him. The very words are such as the Holy Ghost teaches. These are the words God ordered to be written; and promises written by his order, are truly his word. He must write a description of the trouble the people were now in, and were likely to be in. A happy end should be put to these calamities. Though the afflictions of the church may last long, they shall not last always. The Jews shall be restored again. They shall obey, or hearken to the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of David, their King. The deliverance of the Jews from Babylon, is pointed out in the prophecy, but the restoration and happy state of Israel and Judah, when converted to Christ their King, are foretold; also the miseries of the nations before the coming of Christ. All men must honour the Son as they honour the Father, and come into the service and worship of God by him. Our gracious Lord pardons the sins of the believer, and breaks off the yoke of sin and Satan, that he may serve God without fear, in righteousness and true holiness before him all the remainder of his days, as the redeemed subject of Christ our King.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Write ... in a book - To be read and meditated upon by them in private. This makes it exceedingly probable that the date of these two chapters was also the 10th year of Zedekiah, immediately after the purchase of the field from Hanameel.

All the words - i. e., the scroll was to be a summary of whatever of hope and mercy had been contained in previous predictions.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. bring again … captivity of … Israel and Judah—the restoration not merely of the Jews (treated of in this thirtieth chapter), but also of the ten tribes ("Israel"; treated in the thirty-first chapter), together forming the whole nation (Jer 30:18; Jer 32:44; Eze 39:25; Am 9:14, 15). "Israel" is mentioned first because its exile was longer than that of Judah. Some captives of the Israelite ten tribes returned with those of Judah (Lu 2:36; "Aser" is mentioned). But these are only a pledge of the full restoration hereafter (Ro 11:26, "All Israel"). Compare Jer 16:15. This third verse is a brief statement of the subject before the prophecy itself is given.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The reason why God would have the prophecy written, was for a memorial of God’s truth in his promises. Israel never returned as to the body of the people, but those of the ten tribes which were God’s people did return; we read, Luke 2:36, of one Anna who was of the tribe of Asher, and many more doubtless did return according to the promises, Jeremiah 3:12,14 23:6 31:1,6 Eze 37:21,22. It is uncertain whether this promise of returning to their own land was fulfilled in those few of the ten tribes who joined themselves with those of Judah after they were returned from Babylon, or remaineth yet in part to be fulfilled. The former is most probable, and that there shall be no such time when the Jews shall return again to Jerusalem, and possess their own land, for it is hard now to give an account where the posterity of the ten tribes be by whose return the promise should be justified. Besides that the phrase in the beginning of this verse, For, lo, the days come, seem to import a more speedy fulfilling of the promise than after some thousands of years, though it is certain the Jews feed themselves with some such expectations.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord,.... And they are yet to come; the prophecy is not yet fulfilled. Kimchi says this belongs to the days of the Messiah; but not to his first coming, or to his coming in the flesh, which the Jews vainly expect; but to his spiritual coming in the latter day:

that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah,

saith the Lord; which cannot be understood of their return from the Babylonish captivity; for, as Kimchi rightly observes, only Judah and Benjamin returned from thence; and though there were some few of the other tribes that came with them, especially of the tribe of Levi, yet not sufficient to answer to so great a prophecy as this, which refers to the same time as that in Hosea 3:5; as appears by comparing that with Jeremiah 30:9; and when, as the Apostle Paul says, "all Israel shall be saved", Romans 11:25;

and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it; the land of Canaan, given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and which shall be again by the Jews their posterity; for, without that the Jews upon their call and conversion shall return to their own land, in a literal sense, I see not how we can understand this, and many other prophecies.

Geneva Study Bible

For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. turn again the captivity] See on Jeremiah 29:14.

Jeremiah 30:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Introduction, and Statement of the Subject - Jeremiah 30:1. "The word which came to Jeremiah from Jahveh, saying: Jeremiah 30:2. Thus hath Jahveh the God of Israel said: Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book; Jeremiah 30:3. For, behold, days come, saith Jahveh, when I shall turn the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith Jahve, and I shall bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it."

Jeremiah 30:1 contains the heading not merely of Jeremiah 30:2 and Jeremiah 30:3, as Hitzig erroneously maintains, but of the whole prophecy, in Jeremiah 30 and 31. Jeremiah 30:2 and Jeremiah 30:3 form the introduction. Jeremiah is to write the following word of God in a book, because it refers to times still future, - regards the deliverance of Israel and Judah from exile, which will not take place till afterwards. In assigning the reason for the command to write down the word of God that had been received, there is at the same time given the subject of the prophecy which follows. From this it is further evident that the expression "all the words which I have spoken to thee" cannot, like Jeremiah 36:2, be referred, with J. D. Michaelis, to the whole of the prophecies which Jeremiah had up till that time received; it merely refers to the following prophecy of deliverance. The perfect דּבּרתּי is thus not a preterite, but only expresses that the address of God to the prophet precedes the writing down of the words he received. As to the expression שׁוּב שׁבוּת, see on Jeremiah 29:14.