Jeremiah 31:1-6 – I Have Loved You with an Everlasting Love

BIBLE TEXT

Jeremiah 31:1-6

SUMMARY

God’s love for Israel is everlasting, and God has continued God’s faithfulness through thick and thin.

ANALYSIS

God’s love for Israel, strikingly imaged as a virgin bride (31:4), is everlasting and has persisted through the experienced judgment. There has been no point at which God’s love for Israel has ceased; it is everlasting. God’s faithfulness to Israel had remained steadfast through the time of Israel’s infidelity and the consequent judgment. God was even now at work in death to bring new life.

This emphasis on divine love and faithfulness is used to ground God’s renewed promises to Israel. Simply put: God will act in saving ways on Israel’s behalf, because God loves Israel and God is faithful to ancient promises. Israel brings no words or deeds to this relationship that motivates God to make these salvific moves. God is doing what God is doing because of who God is. At the same time, God’s action does not reduce Israel to passivity; the people will be caught up once again in seeing to their life in the land (31:5-6).