Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.
What should we learn from this chapter?
- What event does God say will be a bigger miracle than the crossing of the Red Sea?
Jeremiah 23
The Branch of Righteousness
Jeremiah 23:1 “Woe to the shepherds (leaders) who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).
Jeremiah 23:2 Therefore thus says the Lord God (Yᵊhōvâ ‘ĕlōhîm) of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: “You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).
Jeremiah 23:3 “But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.
- History repeats itself. In Queen Esther’s time they were scattered all over the Persian Empire which spread through Judea, Syria, and its arms wrapped halfway along the shores of the Mediterranean sea.
- The border was from the edge of Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea to the border of India.
- Esther 8:13 A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province (the Jews had been scattered throughout the land) and published for all people, so that the Jews would be ready on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies. 14 The couriers who rode on royal horses went out, hastened and pressed on by the king’s command.
Jeremiah 23:4 I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).
- THE INGATHERING OF SUKKOT
The Jewish Feast of SUKKOT (Booths) is called “the festival of ingathering”:
Sukkot is the Festival of Ingathering; it is the time when the produce of the field, orchard and vineyard is gathered in. The granaries, threshing floors and wine and olive-presses are full to capacity. Weeks and months of toil and sweat put into the soil have finally been amply rewarded. The farmer feels happy and elated. ~The Festival of Ingathering https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/645/jewish/The-Festival-of-Ingathering.htm - God uses a harvest to explain His relationship for those who are His. Jesus described this relationship comparing weeds to wheat.
Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” ~ John the Baptist
Jeremiah 23:5 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ),
“That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness;
A King shall reign and prosper (act wisely),
And execute judgment (justice) and righteousness in the earth (land).
- Jesus is the Branch of Righteousness
- John 15:4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
Jeremiah 23:6 In His days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will dwell safely;
Now this is His name by which He will be called:
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (Heb. Yᵊhōvâ ṣeḏeq)
Jeremiah 23:7 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ), “that they shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’
- Astounding and Astonishing:
THE RETURN OF THE JEWS
The return of the Jews to their homeland is the number one most important fulfillment of prophesy for the end of the ages, and it is has happened in our generation.
Behold, I will bring them from the north country, And gather them from the ends of the earth, Among them the blind and the lame, The woman with child And the one who labors with child, together; A great throng shall return there.
- Jeremiah 31:8 Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. (figuratively speaking ‘the grave” is the dispersal of the Jews without a homeland.)
- Ezekiel 37:11 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. 13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves.
- This event is just as astounding as when God brought the Jews out of Egypt and parted the Red Sea !!!!
- ISRAEL IS REAL.
Jeremiah 23:8 but, (shall say in astonishment) ‘As the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ And they shall (once again) dwell in their own land.”
- “It is God who hears the cries of the afflicted and opens the womb of the barren. Jerusalem, like Sarah, is barren. When the cry of affliction is heard by faith …God opens the womb, and the land teems with fertility.”
- “And I shall make the land desolate and your enemies that dwell in it shall dwell in desolation.” (Vayikra 26:32 the first in the Book of Leviticus.)
- “In this Torah passage, warning the People of Israel about the exile from Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel) if they turn away from observance of the Torah, there is a note of comfort, say our sages. Our land will never accept our enemies. This is an extraordinary promise, because you will not find anywhere in the world a land so good and bountiful which was once so developed and is so in ruins. For ever since we left it the land has accepted no other nation, although so many have unsuccessfully tried to settle it. `Ramban, Commentary on the Torah” http://ohr.edu/tw/weinbach/loveland/lland036.htm
- In 1948 Israel once again became a nation on May 15. The nation, against all odds, was born in one day:
- @Prophecy Alert: Israel is born in one day:
- Isaiah 66:8 Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labor, She gave birth to her children.
- There will be another Jewish scattering in the future when the Antichrist drives the Jews out of Jerusalem in the middle of the tribulation. When Jesus returns to set up His kingdom on earth there will be a last regathering.
- Isaiah 66:8 Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labor, She gave birth to her children.
False Prophets and Empty Oracles
Jeremiah 23:9 My heart within me is broken
Because of the prophets;
All my bones shake.
I am like a drunken man,
And like a man whom wine has overcome,
Because of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ),
And because of His holy words.
Jeremiah 23:10 For the land is full of adulterers;
For because of a curse the land mourns.
The pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up.
Their course of life is evil,
And their might is not right.
The sin of the people is the curse of the land, even as it was with Adam and Eve.
- Romans 8:19 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
Jeremiah 23:11 “For both prophet and priest are profane;
Yes, in My house (the temple) I have found their wickedness,” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).
Jeremiah 23:12 “Therefore their way shall be to them
Like slippery ways;
In the darkness they shall be driven on
And fall in them;
For I will bring disaster on them,
The year of their punishment,” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).
Jeremiah 23:13 “And I have seen folly (Lit. distastefulness) in the prophets of Samaria:
They prophesied by Baal
And caused My people Israel to err.
Jeremiah 23:14 Also I have seen a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem:
They commit adultery and walk in lies;
They also strengthen the hands of evildoers,
So that no one turns back from his wickedness.
All of them are like Sodom to Me,
And her inhabitants like Gomorrah.
- Ref. Verses:
- “Revelation 11:8 And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city (Jerusalem) which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
- Isaiah 1:21 The Degenerate City – How the faithful city has become a harlot! It was full of justice; Righteousness lodged in it, But now murderers.
Jeremiah 23:15 “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts (Yᵊhōvâ ṣāḇā’) concerning the (wicked) prophets:
‘Behold, I will feed them with wormwood,
And make them drink the water of gall;
For from the prophets of Jerusalem
Profaneness (Or Pollution) has gone out into all the land.’ ”
Jeremiah 23:16 Thus says the Lord of hosts (Yᵊhōvâ ṣāḇā’) :
“Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you.
They make you worthless;
They speak a vision of their own heart,
Not from the mouth of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).
Jeremiah 23:17 They continually say to those who despise Me,
‘The Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) has said, “You shall have peace” ’;
And to everyone who walks according to the dictates (stubbornness or imagination) of his own heart, they say,
‘No evil shall come upon you.’ ”
Jeremiah 23:18 For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ),
And has perceived and heard His word?
Who has marked His word and heard it?
Jeremiah 23:19 Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) has gone forth in fury— A violent whirlwind (the Babylonians)!
It will fall violently on the head of the wicked.
Jeremiah 23:20 The anger of the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ) will not turn back
Until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart.
In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.
- The latter days are the end times, the seven year tribulation, also called Daniel’s 70th week.
- The destruction of Judah with Nebuchadnezzar will be repeated in the middle of the seven year tribulation when Gog and Magog break the Antichrist’s peace treaty and attack Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 23:21 “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran.
I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
Jeremiah 23:22 But if they had stood in My counsel,
And had caused My people to hear My words,
Then they would have turned them from their evil way
And from the evil of their doings.
Jeremiah 23:23 “Am I a God (‘ĕlōhîm) near at hand,” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ),
“And not a God (‘ĕlōhîm) afar off?
Jeremiah 23:24 Can anyone hide himself in secret places,
So I shall not see him?” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ);
“Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).
Jeremiah 23:25 “I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’
Jeremiah 23:26 How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart,
Jeremiah 23:27 who try to make My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot My name for Baal.
Jeremiah 23:28 “The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream;
And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat?” says the Lord (Yᵊhōvâ).
- God uses a harvest to explain His relationship for those who are His. Jesus described this relationship comparing weeds to wheat.
Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” ~ John the Baptist
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