Jeremiah 33:3

3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and difficult things, which thou dost not know.

Jeremiah 33:3 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 33:3

Call unto me, and I will answer thee
This is spoken not to Jerusalem, and the inhabitants of it; but to the prophet, encouraging him to seek the Lord by prayer, promising an answer to him. So the Targum,

``pray before me, and I will receive thy prayer:''

and show thee great and mighty things;
or, "fortified ones" ^F16; which are like fortified cities, that cannot easily be come at, unless the gates are opened to enter into; and designs such as are difficult of understanding, which exceed human belief, and which reason cannot comprehend and take in; and such are the great things of the Gospel. Some copies read it, "things reserved" ^F17; as the Targum; and so Jarchi, who interprets it of things future, of things reserved in the heart of God, and which he purposed to do; and very rightly: which thou knowest not;
until revealed; and from hence it appears, that by these great and hidden things are not meant the destruction of Jerusalem, and the seventy years' captivity, and return from that, things which Jeremiah had been made acquainted with time after time, and had prophesied of them; but spiritual blessings hereafter mentioned, some of which the deliverance from Babylon were typical of Ben Melech interprets these of comforts great and strong.

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FOOTNOTES:

F16 (twrub) "munita", Vatablus, Paganinus, Montanus; "fortia", Tigurine version.
F17 (twrun) "abstrusa", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "recondita", so some in Vatablus.

Jeremiah 33:3 In-Context

1 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the second time while he was yet shut up in the court of the guard, saying,

2 Thus hath said the LORD that makes it, the LORD that forms it to establish it; the LORD is his name;

3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and difficult things, which thou dost not know.

4 For thus hath the LORD the God of Israel said concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are thrown down by the siege engines and by the sword

5 (because they came to fight with the Chaldeans, to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in my anger and in my fury and because I hid my face from this city due to all her wickedness):