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<p>Here, I. Jeremiah is directed to <i>write</i> what God had spoken to him, which perhaps refers to all the foregoing prophecies. He must write them and publish them, in hopes that those who had not profited by what he said upon once hearing it might take more notice of it when in reading it they had leisure for a more considerate review. Or, rather, it refers to the promises of their enlargement, which had been often mixed with his other discourses. He must collect them and put them together, and God will now add unto them many like words. He must write them for the generations to come, who should see them accomplished, and thereby have their faith in the prophecy confirmed. He must write them not <i>in a letter</i>, as that in the chapter before to the captives, but <i>in a book</i>, to be carefully preserved in the archives, or among the public rolls or registers of the state. Daniel understood by these books when the captivity was about coming to an end, <a class="bibleref" title="Dan.9.2" href="/passage/?search=Dan.9.2">Dan. 9:2</a>. He must write them in a book, not in loose papers: “<i>For the days come</i>, and are yet at a great distance, when <i>I will bring again the captivity of Israel and Judah</i>, great numbers of the ten tribes, with those of the two,” <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.30.3" href="/passage/?search=Jer.30.3">Jer. 30:3</a>. And this prophecy must be written, that it may be read then also, that so it may appear how exactly the accomplishment answers the prediction, which is one end of the writing of prophecies. It is intimated that they shall be <i>beloved for their fathers’ sake</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Rom.11.28" href="/passage/?search=Rom.11.28">Rom. 11:28</a>); for <i>therefore</i> God will bring them again to Canaan, because it was <i>the land that he gave to their fathers</i>, which therefore <i>they shall possess</i>.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">II. He is directed what to write. The very words are such as the Holy Ghost teaches, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.30.4" href="/passage/?search=Jer.30.4">Jer. 30:4</a>. These are the words which God ordered to be written; and those promises which are written by his order are as truly his word as the ten commandments which were written with his finger. 1. He must write a description of the fright and consternation which the people were now in, and were likely to be still in upon every attack that the Chaldeans made upon them, which will much magnify both the wonder and the welcomeness of their deliverance (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.30.5" href="/passage/?search=Jer.30.5">Jer. 30:5</a>): <i>We have heard a voice of trembling</i>—the shrieks of terror echoing to the alarms of danger. The false prophets told them that they should have <i>peace</i>, but <i>there is fear and not peace</i>, so the margin reads it. No marvel that when <i>without are fightings within are fears</i>. The men, even the men of war, shall be quite overwhelmed with the calamities of their nation, shall sink under them, and yield to them, and shall look like <i>women in labour</i>, whose pains come upon them in great extremity and they know that they cannot escape them, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.30.6" href="/passage/?search=Jer.30.6">Jer. 30:6</a>. You never heard of a man travailing with child, and yet here you find not here and there a timorous man, but <i>every man with his hands on his loins</i>, in the utmost anguish and agony, <i>as women in travail</i>, when they see their cities burnt and their countries laid waste. But this pain is compared to that of a woman in travail, not to that of a death-bed, because it shall end in joy at last, and the pain, like that of a travailing woman, shall be forgotten. <i>All faces</i> shall be <i>turned into paleness</i>. The word signifies not only such paleness as arises from a sudden fright, but that which is the effect of a bad habit of body, the jaundice, or the green sickness. The prophet laments the calamity upon the foresight of it (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.30.7" href="/passage/?search=Jer.30.7">Jer. 30:7</a>): <i>Alas! for that day is great</i>, a day of judgment, which is called the <i>great day</i>, the <i>great and terrible day of the Lord</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Joel.2.31,Jude.1.6" href="/passage/?search=Joel.2.31,Jude.1.6"><span class="bibleref" title="Joel.2.31">Joel 2:31</span>; <span class="bibleref" title="Jude.1.6">Jude 1:6</span></a>), great, so that <i>there has been none like it</i>. The last destruction of Jerusalem is thus spoken of by our Saviour as unparalleled, <a class="bibleref" title="Matt.24.21" href="/passage/?search=Matt.24.21">Matt. 24:21</a>. <i>It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble</i>, a sad time, when God’s professing people shall be in distress above other people. The whole time of the captivity was a time of Jacob’s trouble; and such times ought to be greatly lamented by all that are concerned for the welfare of Jacob and the honour of the God of Jacob. 2. He must write the assurances which God had given that a happy end should at length be put to these calamities. (1.) Jacob’s troubles shall cease: <i>He shall be saved out of them</i>. Though the afflictions of the church may last long, they shall not last always. <i>Salvation belongs to the Lord</i>, and shall be wrought for his church. (2.) Jacob’s troublers shall be disabled from doing him any further mischief, and shall be reckoned with for the mischief they have done him, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.30.8" href="/passage/?search=Jer.30.8">Jer. 30:8</a>. <i>The Lord of hosts</i>, who has all power in his hand, undertakes to do it: “<i>I will break his yoke from off thy neck</i>, which has long lain so heavy, and has so sorely galled thee. <i>I will burst thy bonds</i> and restore thee to liberty and ease, and thou shalt no more be at the beck and command of strangers, shalt no more serve them, nor shall they any more <i>serve themselves of thee</i>; they shall
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