Jeremiah 33:3

3 Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great things, and difficult, which you don't 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 Yahweh came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the guard, saying,

2 Thus says Yahweh who does it, Yahweh who forms it to establish it; Yahweh is his name:

3 Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great things, and difficult, which you don't know.

4 For thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down [to make a defense] against the mounds and against the sword;

5 while [men] come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have killed in my anger and in my wrath, and for all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this city: