o brought up the children of Israel
out of the land of Egypt_; ver. 8, but: _As the Lord liveth, who
brought up, and who led the seed of the house of Israel out of the
North country, and from all the countries whither I have driven them;
and they dwell in their land._"

The sense is this: The future prosperity and salvation shall by far
outshine the greatest deliverance and salvation of the Past. _Calvin_
remarks: "If the first deliverance be valued by itself, it will be
worthy of everlasting remembrance; but if it be compared with the
second deliverance, it will almost vanish;" compare, besides chap. xvi.
14, 15, where the verses now under consideration already occurred
almost _verbatim_ (Jeremiah is fond of such repetitions, which are any
thing but vain repetitions; and this fondness forms one of his
peculiarities); chap. iii. 16, where, in the same sense, it is said of
the Ark of the Covenant that it shall be forgotten in future; Is.
xliii. 18, 19, lxv. 17.--[Hebrew: Hi-ihvh] "living (is) Jehovah," for:
"As Jehovah liveth." It is quite natural that, when God is invoked as a
witness and judge, He should be designated as the _living one_; and it
is as natural that, on such an occasion, the greatest sign of life
which He gave should be pointed to. But that, under the Old Testament
dispensation, was the deliverance from Egypt, the strongest and most
impressive of all those deeds by which the delusion was dissipated,
that God was walking upon the vault of heaven, and did not judge
through the clouds. In future, a still stronger manifestation of life
is to take place. Hence the formula of the oath is altogether general;
the deliverance from Egypt comes into consideration as a manifestation
of life, and not as an act of grace. This was overlooked by _Calvin_
when he remarked: "Whensoever they saw themselves so oppressed, that
they did not see any other end to their evils than in the grace of God,
they said that the same God, who, in former times, had been the
deliverer of His people, was still living, and His power undiminished."

[Pg 424]

CHAP. XXXI. 31-40.

The 30th and 31st chapters may rightly be called the grand hymn of
Israel's deliverance. They are connected into one whole, not only a
material, but also by a formal unity; so that we must indeed wonder at
views such as those of _Venema_ and _Rosenmueller_, who assume that the
section is composed of fragments loosely connected, a