eth forth, a _continuing_ storm, on
the head of the wicked it shall remain. The fierce anger of the Lord
shall not return, until He have done, and until He have performed the
intents of His heart; at the end of days ye shall consider it."
Formerly, in chap. xxiii. 19, 20, in a threatening prophecy which
referred to the exile, the Prophet had uttered the same words. By their
verbal repetition, he intimates that the matter was not by any means
settled with the exile; that the latter must not be considered as the
absolute and final punishment for the sins of the whole nation, but
that, as truly as God is Jehovah, so surely His words will revive, as
often as the circumstances again exist, to which they originally
referred.

[Pg 426]

The more specific the consolation is, the more impressive is it, and
the more does it reach the heart. After having announced salvation,
therefore, to _all_ Israel, the Prophet now proceeds to the consolation
for the two divisions of Israel. He begins with Israel in the
restricted sense--the ten tribes (chap. xxxi. 1-22), and with them he
continues longest, because, when looking to the outward appearance,
they seemed to be lost beyond all hope of recovery, to be for ever
rejected by the Lord. The thought, that we have here an original and
independent announcement of salvation for Israel, is set aside even by
the relation of ver. 1 to ver. 22 of the preceding chapter. For it is
to this verse that the Prophet immediately connects his discourse;
vers. 23 and 24 are only a parenthetical remark, an _Odi profanum
vulgus et arceo_, addressed to those to whom the promise did not
belong. Upon the words: "You shall be my people, and I will be your
God," follow in an inverted order, the words: "At that time, saith the
Lord, I will (specially) be the God of all the families of Israel, and
they shall be my people." Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin,
weeping over her sons, vers. 15-17, is so much the more suited to
represent Israel, that the tribe of Benjamin also, as to its principal
portion, belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes; compare my
commentary on Ps. lxxx. Upon Israel there follows, in vers. 23-26,
Judah. The announcement closes in ver. 26 with the words so often
misunderstood: "Upon this I awaked, and I beheld, and my sleep was
sweet unto me." The Prophet has lost sight of the Present; like a
sleeping man, he is not susceptible of its impressions, compare remarks
on Zech. iv. 1. The