26 Then God's Message came again to Jeremiah: 27 "Stay alert! I am God, the God of everything living. Is there anything I can't do? 28 So listen to God's Message: No doubt about it, I'm handing this city over to the Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He'll take it. 29 The attacking Chaldeans will break through and burn the city down: All those houses whose roofs were used as altars for offerings to Baal and the worship of who knows how many other gods provoked me. 30 It isn't as if this were the first time they had provoked me. The people of Israel and Judah have been doing this for a long time - doing what I hate, making me angry by the way they live." God's Decree. 31 "This city has made me angry from the day they built it, and now I've had my fill. I'm destroying it. I can't stand to look any longer 32 at the wicked lives of the people of Israel and Judah, deliberately making me angry, the whole lot of them - kings and leaders and priests and preachers, in the country and in the city. 33 They've turned their backs on me - won't even look me in the face! - even though I took great pains to teach them how to live. They refused to listen, refused to be taught. 34 Why, they even set up obscene god and goddess statues in the Temple built in my honor - an outrageous desecration! 35 And then they went out and built shrines to the god Baal in the valley of Hinnom, where they burned their children in sacrifice to the god Molech - I can hardly conceive of such evil! - turning the whole country into one huge act of sin. 36 "But there is also this Message from me, the God of Israel, to this city of which you have said, 'In killing and starvation and disease this city will be delivered up to the king of Babylon': 37 "'Watch for this! I will collect them from all the countries to which I will have driven them in my anger and rage and indignation. Yes, I'll bring them all back to this place and let them live here in peace. 38 They will be my people, I will be their God. 39 I'll make them of one mind and heart, always honoring me, so that they can live good and whole lives, they and their children after them. 40 What's more, I'll make a covenant with them that will last forever, a covenant to stick with them no matter what, and work for their good. I'll fill their hearts with a deep respect for me so they'll not even think of turning away from me. 41 "'Oh how I'll rejoice in them! Oh how I'll delight in doing good things for them! Heart and soul, I'll plant them in this country and keep them here!' 42 "Yes, this is God's Message: 'I will certainly bring this huge catastrophe on this people, but I will also usher in a wonderful life of prosperity. I promise. 43 Fields are going to be bought here again, yes, in this very country that you assume is going to end up desolate - gone to the dogs, unlivable, wrecked by the Babylonians. 44 Yes, people will buy farms again, and legally, with deeds of purchase, sealed documents, proper witnesses - and right here in the territory of Benjamin, and in the area around Jerusalem, around the villages of Judah and the hill country, the Shephelah and the Negev. I will restore everything that was lost.' God's Decree."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 32:26-44
Commentary on Jeremiah 32:26-44
(Read Jeremiah 32:26-44)
God's answer discovers the purposes of his wrath against that generation of the Jews, and the purposes of his grace concerning future generations. It is sin, and nothing else, that ruins them. The restoration of Judah and Jerusalem is promised. This people were now at length brought to despair. But God gives hope of mercy which he had in store for them hereafter. Doubtless the promises are sure to all believers. God will own them for his, and he will prove himself theirs. He will give them a heart to fear him. All true Christians shall have a disposition to mutual love. Though they may have different views about lesser things, they shall all be one in the great things of God; in their views of the evil of sin, and the low estate of fallen man, the way of salvation through the Saviour, the nature of true holiness, the vanity of the world, and the importance of eternal things. Whom God loves, he loves to the end. We have no reason to distrust God's faithfulness and constancy, but only our own hearts. He will settle them again in Canaan. These promises shall surely be performed. Jeremiah's purchase was the pledge of many a purchase that should be made after the captivity; and those inheritances are but faint resemblances of the possessions in the heavenly Canaan, which are kept for all who have God's fear in their hearts, and do not depart from him. Let us then bear up under our trials, assured we shall obtain all the good he has promised us.