Jeremiah 31:19
Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.
Surely after turning comes repentance, and after instruction comes deep humiliation, with striking the thigh in grief, shame and remorse over the reproach borne from youth. It pictures backsliding Ephraim taught through chastisement and returning to God in sorrow over his former life, and his repentance moves God who still remembers him with love to compassion and mercy. It belongs to the promise of the new covenant, where those who are truly ashamed of their sins and forsake them are received into covenant with God, yielding to Him and receiving His promises with His law written in heart and mind so they love Him and obey by faith. That restoration from Babylon to Zion with songs and everlasting joy looks through to the more glorious restoration under Christ, when the faithful remnant becomes a type of Israel under the new covenant who are not mere formal worshipers. It also holds comfort that scattered children in the land of the enemy, the realm of the dead, will return to their own border when Jesus awakens them at His coming and the resurrection of the just.
Repentance and Shame
The verse describes complete humiliation after the Lord opened Israel's eyes and gave them a clear sense of their condition. Being turned led to repentance, and being instructed led to striking the thigh, which was a sign of shame and remorse. In that state they were ashamed, yea even confounded, over the reproach they had borne from their youth. It shows Ephraim repenting after God turned him back and taught him through chastisement, striking his thigh in grief and shame as he recognized the reproach of his former life. This repentance follows long backsliding, yet the Lord still remembers Ephraim with love and promises mercy.
Backsliding Ephraim returns to God and grieves over his former ways, and his repentance moves God to compassion. The verse belongs to the chapter that names the new covenant, in which those who are truly ashamed of their sins and forsake them are received into God's covenant. Turning from sin and yielding to the Lord brings knowledge of Him.
Covenant Setting and Fulfilment
Jeremiah 31:19 stands in the section of Jeremiah concerning the Babylonian exile. It belongs to the Messianic prophecies that look through the restoration from Babylon to the more glorious restoration under Christ Jesus our Lord. After Jeremiah 20 the prophecies are not placed in chronological order, but that displacement makes no change in the teaching, and the chapter itself nearly always clearly shows its own time. In chronological order chapters 30 and 31 follow chapters 24 and 29 and come before chapters 27 and 28.
It belongs to the promise of return to Zion with songs and everlasting joy for those scattered to Babylon. That return from captivity is altogether a type for the Gospel dispensation, while the coupled fall of Babylon is a type of the end of the world. It is part of Jeremiah's prediction of the new covenant reaching to the restoration under Christ, in which the faithful remnant of literal Israel is a type of Israel under the new covenant. It points to the coming of Christ set forth in different figures, showing that those in the new covenant are not mere formal worshipers but have God's law written in heart and spirit.
It is part of Jeremiah's prediction of the new covenant, later recorded as fulfilled in Christ. The new covenant rests on God's promises: people yield to and receive those promises, and God places His law in their hearts and minds so that they love Him and desire to obey. This is the gospel and God's plan of salvation through faith. It expresses the new covenant in which God covenants to write His law in the heart and in the mind, bringing men back into willing, glad harmony with His government. The law is the same basic principle as under the old covenant, the Ten Commandments, and remains binding, so the saved man obeys God in every known duty by faith in Christ rather than by his own strength.
It stands in the promise of the new covenant to Israel and Judah which was made with them and not put off to a future age. The covenant was confirmed with them for the last week of the seventy weeks cut off upon them, beginning with Christ's preaching to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and ending when the apostles turned to the Gentiles. It was then established in contrast with the first covenant which had ceased, with Christ as High Priest, and His mediation under the new covenant was for them and for their brethren who had transgressed under the first covenant. It belongs also to Jeremiah's prophecy of the same events prophesied by Ezekiel, his contemporary, pointing to the same time. It concerns living Israel in the commencement of the day of the Lord, previous to the resurrection of the just, at the time of Jacob's trouble. It will be fulfilled when God gathers Israel, cleanses them, gives them a new heart and puts a new spirit within them, and brings them into the land of the covenant of peace to dwell in the land given to their fathers, when the desolate land is tilled and made like the garden of Eden.
Restoration and Comfort
The verse stands within the promise to bereaved mothers that their children shall come back from the land of the enemy and come again to their own border. That land of the enemy is the realm of the dead, where the children rest until Jesus awakens them at His coming. The hope held out is therefore their future restoration at His coming, not that they are already alive in heaven. With its context in Jeremiah 31:15-19, the verse gives comfort when a little child is laid in the grave, turning grief into greater love and longing for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the just.