Thomas Aquinas Commentary Jeremiah 3

Here, the prophet calls them to repentance.

First, he addresses the invitation to return.

Second, he addresses the stubbornness of those who are called back: and you shall say to them (Jeremiah 8:4).

The first point is divided into two parts.

In the first part, he discusses the admonitions to return.

In the second, he gives the reasons for returning: if you return, O Israel, says the LORD, to turn back to me (Jeremiah 4:1).

This first point is also divided into two parts.

In the first part, he calls the people back.

In the second, he mentions the fruit of their rejection, when he says: but as a woman that despises her lover (Jeremiah 3:20).

This first point is again divided into two.

In the first part, he calls them back from the sin of adultery.

In the second, he calls them back from its punishment, where he says: go and shout these words against the north wind (Jeremiah 3:12).

This first part is divided into two sections.

In the first, he calls them back with admonitions.

In the second, he calls them back by using examples, beginning at: and the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king (Jeremiah 3:6a).

Regarding the first section on admonitions, the prophet does two things.

First, he calls them back because of God's mercy, which he proves by citing the common proverb: if a man shall send his wife away. This comes from Deuteronomy 24:1: if a man shall send his wife away. He speaks according to the permission given for a bill of divorce because of the hardness of their hearts (Matthew 19:8). He was forbidding a return either to prevent them from being quick to divorce, or so that they would not kill her after taking her back deceitfully.

From this proverb, he draws proof of divine mercy: you have fornicated with your many lovers—the idols. Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, because he will abundantly pardon (Isaiah 55:7).

Second, he calls them back by confronting them with their guilt.

He does this first by exposing their guilt and indicating the place where it occurred: lift up your eyes on high—that is, with right consideration, or alternatively, “everywhere.” Where have you not lain, as if to say everywhere, like a harlot, for idolatry. You have made a brothel in every street (Ezekiel 16:24). He also exposes their desire for sinning: you would sit by the roads, like a harlot waiting for her lovers, and as a thief waiting for those whom he might rob. And behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, prepared to deceive souls (Proverbs 7:10). Gilead is a city of those who make idols, supplanted with blood, and like the jaws of highway robbers (Hosea 6:8). He indicates the effect of their sin: you have defiled the land. As we saw above, you polluted my land, and turned my inheritance into an abomination (Jeremiah 2:7).

Then, he establishes the punishment for the sin: therefore, the drops of the rains were held back. These are the drops by which rain and storms are generated. I shall command the clouds that they rain not showers upon my vine (Isaiah 5:6). He also shows the shamelessness of those who sinned: the forehead of a harlot. As it says below, nay; rather, they were not ashamed of shame (Jeremiah 6:15).

Finally, he urges them to repentance.

He does this first by encouraging them to recognize God's benefits: therefore. It is as if he were saying, “The past is enough.” You are my Father, through creation, and the guide of my youth. It is as if he were saying, “When you led me through the desert, I was still a virgin.” Who forsook the guide of her youth (Proverbs 2:17). The Spirit of the Lord was her guide (Isaiah 63:14).

Second, he urges them to seek mercy, saying: will you be angry forever, or will you continue to the end? Will you be angry with us forever, or extend your anger from generation to generation? (Psalms 85:5).

Here, he shows their contempt regarding sins of the mouth with the words behold you have spoken, which refers to words of pride. Regarding sins of commission, he says and you have done, which corresponds to the phrase you have satisfied wickedness, relating to the sin of the heart.

To the phrase and you were able, he adds and you have displayed, as if to say that you reveled in your power to sin.

The phrase and for your words is not in the Hebrew or in ancient manuscripts but appears to be a clarification by Jerome.The text Thomas Aquinas is working with is clearly causing some confusion here between the text of Jeremiah and the text of Jerome’s commentary. After Jeremiah 3:5 above, Jerome’s commentary reads: pro verbis paenitentiae verbis superbiae blasphemasti et inplesti malam cogitationem tuam et ostendisti contra virum fortitudinem tuam, “Instead of words of penitence, you have blasphemed with words of pride, and you have satisfied your wicked thought, and you have displayed your strength against man” (Jerome, In Hieremiam, 1.41).

God gave him a space to repent, but he abused it in his pride (Job 24:23). Woe to you who are mighty to drink wine, and strong men to mix drunkenness (Isaiah 5:22).

Here, the prophet calls them back using the example of the ten tribes, and on this subject, he makes three points.

1. He gives an example of the crime of idolatry—she has gone away, following her own inclinations and not My commands.

   He speaks of her disobedience: and I said. They have made for themselves statues and groves on every high hill and under every leafy tree, and there they burned incense on their altars in the manner of the nations (2 Kings 17:10). As for the punishment He made known to them: her treacherous sister saw, because they came from the same ancestors.

   I gave her a bill of divorce. She has the appearance of a prostitute, in whom filthiness is found.

   Yet, on the contrary, what is this bill of divorce? (Isaiah 50:1).

   It must be said that God, for His part, divorces no one; rather, it is sinful man who divorces himself from God. For this reason, it says in the same passage: you have been sold for your iniquities, and for your wickedness have I divorced your mother.

2. He exposes their contempt: yet treacherous Judah her sister did not fear.

   With stone—that is, with an idol made of stone. But Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord his God, but walked in the errors that Israel had committed (2 Kings 17:19).

3. He highlights the severity of their guilt: and the LORD said to me, rebellious Israel has justified herself. This is comparatively speaking, because the ten tribes had not seen the punishment of other peoples and were not corrected by it. You have justified your sisters in all your abominations, which you have done (Ezekiel 16:51).

Here, he calls them back from the punishment of captivity.

1. First, he calls them back.
2. Second, he shows them the cause of their being called back, beginning with the phrase but I said (Jeremiah 3:19).

Concerning the first point, there are two points:

1. He speaks of their being called back.
2. The response of those who were called back is described: and I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will lead you into Zion (Jeremiah 3:14b).

Concerning the first of those points, there are two points:

1. He calls them back from the ten tribes when he calls them to return, against the north wind, where they are held captive in the land of the Assyrians. As the psalmist says, He will not always be angry, nor threaten forever (Psalms 102:9). Regarding the recognition of their sins, the prophet says, but recognize. He continues, You have . . . scattered your ways to strangers, which refers to their many idols. As we saw previously, consider the roads in the valley and know what you have done (Jeremiah 2:23).
2. Speaking of those from the two tribes, he says turn back—by repentance—and returning to me. Alternatively, this means returning from captivity. As Hosea says, And it shall be on that day, says the Lord, that she will call me, ‘My husband,’ and will no more call upon the Baalim (Hosea 2:16).

^3:14b And I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will lead you into Zion.

Here, the author takes up the response of those who have been called back:

1. First, concerning the two tribes, he promises them the restoration of their native land: one from a city, because they were scattered, or because not all of them returned. Indeed, I will take you from the nations, and I will gather you from every land, and I will lead you to your own land (Ezekiel 36:24).

   He also promises the restoration of justice by the correction of their rulers: and I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and they will feed you with knowledge, regarding faith, and understanding, regarding morals. I will restore your judges as they were before, and your counsellors as they were of old (Isaiah 1:26).

   Furthermore, regarding the increase of glory, he signifies this by the forgetting of what came before: when you have multiplied . . . they shall not say anymore, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ This is as if to say they will consider what they now glory in as nothing, because the ark had been hidden and was not found, as it says in 2 Maccabees 1.

   This glory is also seen in the promise of future things: in that time they will call Jerusalem. This refers to a whole Jerusalem, completed by the reputation for holiness in which it was held, as it says in 1 Maccabees 3. The place of my throne, and the place of the prints of my feet, where I dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever (Ezekiel 43:7).

   Finally, with regard to the increase of worship: and all nations shall be gathered together. This means some will come from all peoples, for they will come to pray in Jerusalem. Alternatively, it may be understood to speak of the conversion of the nations to the faith of Christ. All the nations, which you have made, will come and worship before you, O Lord (Psalms 85:9).

2. Second, he discusses the conversion of the ten tribes: in those days the house of Judah shall go to the house of Israel, because those who returned were joined to the two tribes. This is alluded to when it says, together they shall come. As it is said later: in those days, and at that time, says the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, walking and weeping they shall make haste, and shall seek the LORD their God (Jeremiah 50:4).

   Some, however, interpret all this as referring to the end times.