Jeremiah 30:14
All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased. All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased.
The verse stands in the section of Jeremiah concerning the Babylonian exile, presenting sorrow changed into joy in the return of the Israelites from captivity. Chapters 30-31 are not in chronological place but belong after chapters 24 and 29 and before chapters 27 and 28 within the larger sequence of chapters 20 to 46. The chapter is among the prophecies of restoration that look beyond the restoration from Babylon to the more glorious restoration under Christ.
The verse belongs to the prophecy of Jacob's trouble and points to the same time as the promises of Israel's gathering and deliverance, the commencement of the day of the Lord before the resurrection of the just. The chapter shows that a quota of Judah was dispersed with the ten tribes, so that eleven lost or hidden tribes with part of Judah make twelve tribes together in dispersion, lost or gentiled as a microcosm in Britain. The chapter is appealed to together with chapters 31 and 33, Psalm 89, the last seven chapters of Isaiah, the last nineteen chapters of Ezekiel, and seven of the shorter prophets down to Malachi in support of the return of the Jews, the reign of Christ, and the inheritance of the saints.
The verse gives no support for a special future work for the Jews in the Christian dispensation, since the saints are taken to heaven at the second coming of Christ when the earth is desolated, which overthrows that theory. Affliction comes for the multitude of iniquity and because sins are increased, and God permits it as correction out of love and mercy rather than abandonment. Former lovers, pleasures, and companions forget and abandon the sinner in distress, and the wound is called an enemy's and the chastisement cruel because the enemy tempted the sinner into transgression.
Such chastisement can correct a person and turn them back toward obedience, and the pain may remain until its corrective purpose is accomplished. Suffering can also persist while God works out purposes beyond human understanding or because repentance and the resolve to do right are not yet deep-rooted.