Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 30:11

"For I am with thee, saith Jehovah, to save thee: for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, but I will not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee in measure, and will in no wise leave thee unpunished." — Jeremiah 30:11 (ASV)

Though I make a full end of all nations.— On the phrase, see Notes on Jeremiah 4:27; Jeremiah 5:10; Jeremiah 5:18. It is eminently characteristic of the prophets of Jeremiah’s time (Ezekiel 11:13; Ezekiel 20:17; Nahum 1:8–9).

Here the thought, implied elsewhere and reproduced in Jeremiah 46:28, is expressed more fully than before. This thought is that while the destruction of the national life of the heathen nations on whom judgment was to fall would be complete and irreversible—so that Moab, Ammon, and Edom would no longer have a place in the history of the world—the punishment of Israel, in contrast, would be remedial as well as retributive. This punishment would, in due time, work out a complete restitution.

In correcting in measure we trace an echo of Psalm 6:1 (see Note on Jeremiah 10:24). That thought sustains the prophet in his contemplation of the captivity and apparent ruin of his people. To be left altogether unpunished would be, as in the let him alone of Hosea 4:17, the most terrible of all punishments.