And as for me, I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee the pleasant land, the goodly inheritance of the hosts of the nations? And I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from following me.
Jeremiah 3 is full of charges against a faithless people. Then God speaks like a father working out how to keep a wayward child in the family — and He answers His own question with a name.
One writer sums up the chapter as a promise of restoration resting on God's goodness alone, and says why grace can speak here at all:
Jeremiah 3 proclaims the restoration of Israel by sovereign goodness, and the blessing of the last days when they return to God. Notice only this. Before the pleading with Israel over their folly, the Lord first points out that there was no seeking of Himself, no longing after Him: neither people nor priests said, "Where is the LORD?" Since judgment falls on Israel, God can let His heart flow out in the testimony of grace.
The chapter opens with a marriage broken by desertion. What God does next has no human parallel:
God is nowhere more Himself than in His tender mercy to His fallen people. A man could not take back a wife who had left him for another. "Israel had committed adultery with many lovers: yet return again to me, says the LORD."
The writers quoted here use an older translation, which reads the first half of the verse as a question — "How shall I put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land?" — and the second half as a promise: "You shall call me, my Father, and shall not depart from me." God had given the land once already, and it had gone wrong. That is what makes the question so pointed:
That land was made a fit place to live for the chosen people, for it was a good land, flowing with milk and honey. But they did not make it a fit place for God… When Israel failed and Canaan became an abomination, God was not defeated… Here are these two things again — the sons of men brought into relationship with God, and the habitable part of His earth. But the question is asked: how could God bring these wayward men of Israel, how could He bring any of the wayward sons of men, to answer His thoughts in a place where He could dwell with them?
God had sent prophets and messengers, and nothing held. The second half of the verse names what was still missing:
Israel's sad history of backsliding proved beyond question that if God was to secure men for Himself, something other than the prophetic word, or even the ministry of angels, was needed. God knew this from the beginning, and gleams of light about it broke out here and there in those earlier fruitless days, as in His lament over Israel's continual treachery. This was what God held in reserve until the fullness of the times had come. He would reveal Himself as Father, and by this revelation secure a true and steadfast response.
Commentators read this promise as still future, waiting on a King:
The call that follows — to return and confess to the One who is married to them — looks on to a future day. Then a greater glory will outshine the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and the true King will reign… Then, in a national sense, Israel will call Him "My Father", and "not turn away from following Him". This has never yet taken place, as we know. It supposes the return of our Lord Jesus Christ to Israel as David's greater Son.
Israel's sonship here belongs to a nation, and writers mark the difference:
We must not confuse the adoption of Israel with what we know in Christianity… As a nation Israel could indeed be called God's son, and, in relation to the nations of the earth, His firstborn… Still, this is completely different in character from Christian adoption.
The verse ends with a promise about staying, not only about coming back:
"You shall call Me, My Father, and shall not depart from Me," was God's word to a backsliding people in ancient days. It seems to us that this name, Abba, is what will keep us from wandering and preserve us from worry. In the knowledge of His perfect love and care for us we shall rest.
- Question. God Himself raises the problem. How can He set a faithless people among His children and give them a good land?
- Difficulty. He gave the land once, and they defiled it. The question is not property but how wayward people can live where God dwells with them.
- Answer. Prophets and messengers were not enough. God gives a name instead: He makes Himself known as Father, and that secures a lasting response.
- Reach. For Israel the words still wait on a coming day. The nation will call Him "My Father" — a place writers keep distinct from Christian adoption.
- Result. Knowing Him as Father is what keeps a wanderer from leaving again.
Surely [as] a woman treacherously departeth from her companion, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith Jehovah.
The verse names Israel's sin with the sharpest picture available: a marriage betrayed. In the verse before, God speaks of setting His people among His children and hearing them call Him Father. Why does He speak of desertion in the same breath?
The word "treacherous" only bites because a real bond existed. Commentators note that Scripture treats God's tie to Israel as a marriage, and grades her sin by that standard.
The sad truth is that Israel was married to Jehovah, as the prophets remind the people (Isaiah 54; Jeremiah 3). So her unfaithfulness is branded as adultery, not as prostitution like the Babylon of the New Testament (so in Hosea 3 and elsewhere). Yet in time His grace may deal with Israel not as a guilty widow, but as a woman forsaken and a wife of youth.
That bond explains the tone of the whole passage. God is not just offended at bad behaviour. Someone else has taken His place as husband.
The prophets say much about Israel's conduct as a wife, and about Jehovah's jealousy on that score. Her unfaithfulness is now plain. She has broken her vows. She has left her Husband, the Holy One of Israel, and He has poured out His burning jealousy on the faithless nation. He is a jealous God, and cannot bear the thought that the heart He claims as His own should be given to another.
Leaving a husband means going somewhere else. One writer traces every trouble Israel had back to that one move, and then finds the same drift in a church long after.
Again and again Jehovah reminds His people, Israel, of a sad fact. All their trouble came from turning away from Him. He was their ALL, but they looked for comfort elsewhere. "They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters," He said. It was the same with God's people of old. Later John had to write of the assembly at Ephesus, where Paul worked so long and so faithfully: "You have abandoned the love you had at first" (Revelation 2:4).
Verse 20 answers God's own words in verse 19. There He speaks of setting them among His children and hearing them say "My Father." One writer sees in that a gleam of what God kept in reserve.
God knew what was needed from the beginning. Gleams of light broke out here and there in those former, ineffective days. One came in His lament over Israel's continual treachery: "And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me" (Jeremiah 3:19). This was what God held in reserve until the fullness of the times came. He would reveal Himself as Father, and by that revelation secure a true and steady response in the hearts of men.
Human law had no way back for a wife who had left. God's appeal in this chapter breaks that rule. One writer says His character shows most at that very point.
God, however, is nowhere more Himself than in His tender mercy to His fallen people. A man could not take back the wife who had deserted him for another. "Israel had committed fornication with many lovers: yet return again to Me, says the Lord." He points out their frequent and shameless unfaithfulness, while they still call Him the father and guide of their youth. But whatever they said, they kept on doing evil. Israel's uncleanness was well known, and God had called her back in vain. Judah was even more treacherous. She despised the warning, though she knew better, and sinned more boldly still.
The line quoted there from Jeremiah 3:1 follows an older translation, not the ESV.
The nation has not yet made the confession that follows in the chapter. Writers place it in the future, when Israel will say the words of verse 19.
The call that follows — to return and confess to the One who is married to them — looks on to a future day. Then a greater glory will outshine the ark of the covenant of the LORD. The true King will reign, and "they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD." He will be truly exalted, and Israel as a nation will call Him "My Father" and "not turn away from following Him" (vv. 14-19). This has never yet taken place, as we know.
- Bond. Israel was married to Jehovah, so Scripture calls her sin adultery, not simple disobedience.
- Betrayal. He was her all; the treachery was looking elsewhere for what only He could give.
- Warning. Ephesus drifted the same way: leaving first love is the same move.
- Mercy. No human husband could take back such a wife; God says "return," and is never more Himself than there.
- Homecoming. One day Israel will say the Father-name of verse 19, and will turn away no more.
A voice is heard upon the heights, the weeping supplications of the children of Israel; for they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Jehovah their God.
Jeremiah has been pleading with a people who turned away from God. Now a cry comes back from the very hills where they went wrong — and the question is what God does with such tears.
The bare heights are not neutral ground. Earlier in the chapter the prophet describes what Israel did on those same hills. He also records what God thought of a return that was only for show.
The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah, "Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?" … "Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD" (Jer. 3:6, 10). God would rather have what is real, even when our souls are far from Him, than something false — a nearness we claim but are not in. … The Lord will not have anything but what is real.
The weeping and pleading are not the restoration itself. They are the state God works in people just before He restores them. The call that answers this cry comes next.
Verses sixteen to twenty show how God will recover and restore Israel in time to come. Jeremiah 3:21 shows the moral state that comes before restoration — that is, weeping and prayer. Then comes another loving call: "Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness." Who could resist such an appeal? Many a time a poor soul says, How can I get back, what must I go through to get back? Look at this verse … and note the result of the call: "Behold, we come to you, for you are the LORD our God." Behold, we come. It is done.
The verse gives a cause for the tears: the people now feel what they have done. A passage in Hosea shows the same order. First the conscience wakes up. Then comes the promise of healing.
Look at the way the conscience is at work there. They feel all that they had sought after instead of God. They see how they had turned to the schemes of this world instead of the LORD. Afterwards, in verse 4, you get God's reply: "I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them." But before that comes the sense of where they are. That is the true work of God in the conscience, and it is always so.
Forgetting God is the root the verse names, and it happens quietly. A heart can be far gone before anything visible changes.
The history of Israel proves that the heart may turn away from God long before He withdraws His blessings. Israel forgot the Lord, and how long it was before God came in judgment to show what their state was!
The closing part of the chapter looks ahead. The cry it describes is a repentance Israel has not yet made.
Verses 19–25. These verses predict and anticipate what the true repentance of the people will one day be. There will be weeping and pleading. They will acknowledge that true salvation is in the Lord. They will confess their sins and their disobedience.
The sorrow itself is not the people's own work. Grace produces it.
The end of the chapter describes at length, and very movingly, the spirit that grace will produce in Israel when God brings them back. It also describes how the Lord will receive them.
- Forgetting — the trouble starts here. The heart can drift from God long before He takes anything away, so the ruin stays hidden for a long time.
- Perverting — forgetting shows itself in a twisted path, in what people chase instead of God. When they finally feel where they are, that is God's own work in the conscience.
- Weeping — the cry from the hills is the state that comes just before restoration. God accepts no substitute for it. He wants what is real, not a return "in pretense."
- Returning — the call answers the cry at once. God offers healing before anything is repaired, and the answer comes back: "Behold, we come to you."
- Grace — the tears are not the price of mercy but its fruit. This is the spirit grace produces in a people God is bringing back, and a repentance still ahead of them.
-- Return, backsliding children; I will heal your backslidings. ... Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art Jehovah our God.
In Jeremiah 3 God pleads with a people who had walked away from Him and given themselves to idols. Here that plea reaches its warmest point: one verse holds an invitation, a promise of healing, and the people's answer. Two questions decide everything. What does it cost to come back, and who does the healing?
The invitation does not wait for the people to improve. It comes at the end of a chapter of charges.
I need not dwell on the bitter charges of the prophet. The Jews did a double evil. They forsook the Lord, the only source of living waters, and turned instead to cisterns that could hold no water, fleeing to idolatry and all its corrupting influences. But in Jeremiah 3 we have the Lord pleading with them. He shows them that Judah would turn out no better than Israel, bad as Israel had been. Judah had held out for a time and gave fair promises under Josiah. The crisis would surely come; but when a man has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
Many people who have drifted assume there is a long process to endure before God will have them again. The second half of the verse answers that fear, because the return and the arrival are the same moment.
Jeremiah 3:21 shows the moral state that comes before restoration — weeping and prayer. Then comes another loving call. "Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." Who could resist such an appeal? Many a time a poor soul says, How can I get back? What must I go through to get back? Look at this verse... and note the result of the call: "Behold, we come to you; for you are the Lord our God." Behold, we come. It is done. The soul that heeds the call to return says, "We come to you; you are the Lord our God."
The promise is "I will heal" — the work belongs to God. Writers press this against any idea that a wanderer engineers his own recovery.
Whether we have backslidden openly or in heart, every backslider will be restored, though it may not be until a deathbed. And all restoration begins with the Lord. The wandering sheep would never return if the Lord in His grace did not go after His sheep. David says, "He restores my soul." Naomi says, "The Lord has brought me home again."
Why does He still call them "children"? Their behaviour has not cut the tie on His side.
Remember that the Lord never gives His people up, whatever their state or condition. When Israel seemed wholly given over to idolatry, Jeremiah cried, "Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord; for I am married to you"... No! The Lord never forgets His people, however grievously they may have sinned. The history of Peter, on the sad night when he denied his Lord, proclaims this truth like a trumpet. This is certain. So it is very clear that all who share the Lord's heart for His people will keep His own attitude of unquenchable affection.
Some read the people's answer as prophecy — words Israel has not yet spoken, but will.
Verses 19-25. What the future true repentance of the people will be is here predicted and anticipated. There will be weeping and supplications. They will acknowledge that true salvation is in the Lord. They will confess their sins and their disobedience.
Jeremiah himself traces the alternative. Drifting that is not checked hardens into a settled condition.
Unjudged sin leads to graver evil. Move on to the eighth chapter, where the Lord asks, "Why then has this people of Jerusalem turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return" (Jer. 8:5). If I do not heed His word and return, I shall get into this awful condition of perpetual backsliding.
The verse leaves no room for the hesitation that says the door has closed.
If someone who has backslidden or fallen reads these lines, we would earnestly urge him to return to Jesus at once. "Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." What is the response to this moving appeal? "Behold, we come to You; for You are the Lord our God."... The love of the heart of Jesus knows no change. We change, but He is "the same yesterday, today, and forever," and He delights to be trusted... It is sad to fall, to err, to backslide. It is sadder still, once we have done so, to distrust the love of Jesus or His gracious readiness to take us to His heart again.
- Bottom — The call comes after every charge. When a person has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
- Call — He still calls wanderers children. He never gives His people up, whatever their state.
- Heal — The promise is His own act; the straying sheep would never return if the Lord did not go after it.
- Come — The answer "Behold, we come to You" is the whole journey home. It is done.
- Delay — Refuse the call, and drifting hardens into perpetual backsliding. Sadder than falling is doubting His readiness to receive you back.
Truly in vain [is salvation looked for] from the hills, [and] the multitude of mountains; truly in Jehovah our God is the salvation of Israel.
In Jeremiah 3, God pleads with a nation that has abandoned Him. Verse 23 is the answer He puts in their mouths. It is a confession with two halves: the hills were worthless, and the LORD alone saves.
These words are not God's accusation. They are the people's own admission, and the prophet voices it for them. One writer sets the closing verses in that frame. He also gives a hard verdict on the religious reform under King Josiah, then under way in Jeremiah's day.
The end of the chapter dwells, in a very moving way, on the spirit that grace will produce in Israel when God brings them back. It also dwells on the way the Lord will receive them. In verses 23-25 the prophet confesses the people's condition at the time in which he spoke. This chapter gives us the solemn revelation that, as far as the people were concerned, the reform under Josiah was only hypocrisy.
The hills here are not scenery. The ESV calls what went on there "the orgies on the mountains". They were the sites of Israel's idol worship, spread across the whole country.
God had rescued them from Egypt, and they had promised, at Sinai, not to transgress. Sadly, they set up the golden calf before the law even reached the camp. The long list of later idolatries told how they had broken the covenant. "High places" for idol worship had dotted the whole land. In the shade of every green tree they practised the detestable rites of the pagan nations. Both spiritually and literally, these unholy and unclean rites deserved the name of prostitution that the prophets so often give them. What could God do with such a nation but put them away?
Such worship rarely announces itself as idolatry. It starts with something that still carries God's name.
At first they claimed the high places were for the worship of God. But this very soon turned into the worship of idols. In the same way, we can crave high recognition from people in our outward worship of God. That desire very easily becomes idolatry in all but name. Satan's counterfeit will displace God and take His place.
Mountains look unshakeable. Older translations put this verse as salvation hoped for in vain from the hills. Psalm 121 opens with the same need: "From where does my help come?" One writer pictures the man who asks it.
Mountains surround him, and they look strong, imposing, and immovable. In the same way, some people in the world seem firmly established in power, and beyond the reach of an enemy. But can we trust in any fellow creature? … Realising his need of help, and that the help of man is in vain, the godly man turns from the creature to the Creator.
Israel had already tried this. The result was worse than disappointment.
The mountains had once been Israel's trust. In their day of pride they had leaned upon the creature more than the Creator. But that help had only been a pitfall of destruction to them. They had stumbled and fallen, and been trapped and broken. And now they are waking from the long and dishonoured sleep of their night of blindness. They turn to seek Israel's Saviour in the only Maker of heaven and earth.
Commentators read the second half of the verse — salvation in the LORD — as a prophecy. It points to a repentance Israel has not yet made. One writer traces the chapter forward to the day the King returns.
This has never yet taken place, as we know. It supposes the return of our Lord Jesus Christ to Israel as David's greater Son. Their conscience will be truly reached then, and they will return to the One they had forsaken and forgotten. "Behold, we come to you, for you are the LORD our God", they say (v. 22). They confess their sin, owning that the salvation of Israel is in Him alone (v. 23).
This confession does not come from threats. It comes when God's grace meets people at their lowest.
In Jeremiah 3 we have the Lord pleading with them. He shows them that, bad as Israel might have been, Judah would turn out no better. Judah had held out for a time, and gave fair promises under Josiah. The crisis would surely come; but when a man has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
- The hills deceived. They were real places of idol worship, not innocent high ground.
- The hills looked solid. Mountains seem strong, imposing and immovable. To lean on them is to lean on the creature, not the Creator.
- The hills destroyed. What Israel leaned on in their pride became a pitfall. They stumbled, fell, and it broke them.
- The LORD saves. Waking from their blindness, they turn to Israel's Saviour, the only Maker of heaven and earth. Salvation is in Him alone.
- Grace speaks first. God Himself supplies this confession. When a man has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
But shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
Jeremiah 3 ends in confession, and this verse is its heart: a shameful thing has eaten up all that the fathers worked for. So what was that shameful thing, why does the reckoning reach back to their youth, and who is speaking here?
These are not the people's own words at the time. The prophet speaks the confession for them.
The end of the chapter dwells, in a very moving way, on the spirit that grace will produce in Israel when God brings them back. It also dwells on how the Lord will receive them. In verses 23-25 the prophet confesses the people's condition at the time when he spoke.
The devourer is never named. The verse simply calls it a shame; older translations read, "shame has devoured the labour of our fathers." That word swap has a history in Israel. One writer traces it in names from Saul's family, where "shame" took the place of the idol's name, Baal.
Ishbosheth means "man of shame." People might easily suppose that name came from his history, rather than being his original one. We know from Chronicles that his original name was Esh-baal. We have a similar change in Jonathan's son Meribbaal, changed into Mephibosheth. In Hosea 9:10 Baal himself is called "that shame." There is no real doubt that this sense of the shameful character of idolatry led to these changes.
The idol did not just offend God. It ate what generations had built. One writer comments on a similar complaint in Lamentations: Judah now had to pay for its own water and wood. He counts up what leaving God really costs.
It may seem that there is much to gain by taking your own way and putting the fear of God out of mind. Satan will suggest, too, that it costs too much to live for God. He offers tempting bait to the unhappy heart that has begun to crave other things. But in the end it only proves that disobedience to God is a costly indulgence — an unholy luxury that nobody can really afford... Departure from God is the most foolish and worst investment any child of grace ever made.
The confession reaches across generations. The fathers worked, and the loss has run on "from our youth." In Lamentations the people say the same thing: their fathers sinned, and they carry it. One writer shows what is wrong with using that as a complaint.
For if fathers and children are alike sinful, the punishment is due either way — for the fathers or for the children. If God judges, it must come. How much better, then, to repent than to complain and murmur! That only makes the evil worse and ensures vengeance on such growing rebellion against God.
Israel has not yet made this confession. One writer places it in a day still ahead.
The call that follows, to return and confess to the One who is married to them, looks on to a future day... Their conscience will be truly reached then, and they will return to the One they had forsaken and forgotten.
An idol need not carry a foreign name to devour what a life has gathered. The warning is carried straight over to readers who would never bow to a carved image.
Such is the result of departure from God, a sorrowful result that is not limited to God's ancient people, Israel. If we get away from the Lord and seek the things of this present world, we expose ourselves to the enemy. Someone might say, surely Christians would not choose new gods? But the apostle John writes to us, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). Everything that would challenge Christ's right to fill the heart is an idol!
- Shame named. The devourer is idolatry. Scripture gives it the name it deserves: in Hosea, Baal himself is called "that shame." Israel even reworked personal names to avoid honouring him.
- Shame devours. What the idol promised to give, it ate instead — the fathers' labour, and the next generation with it. Disobedience is a luxury nobody can afford.
- Shame inherited. The loss runs from the fathers down through "our youth." Fathers and children are alike guilty, so judgment is due either way. Repenting beats complaining.
- Shame confessed. The prophet speaks the confession before the people ever feel it. The chapter shows the spirit grace will produce in them when God brings them back.
- Shame answered. For Israel, that return is still future. And any heart that lets something else hold Christ's place owes the same account.
We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us; for we have sinned against Jehovah our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not hearkened to the voice of Jehovah our God.
The chapter does not end with God speaking. It ends with the people speaking — a confession of shame that covers their whole history. Is such shame a mark of repentance, or only a guilty conscience? And when are these words spoken?
These closing words are not a report of what Israel said in Jeremiah's day. The prophet makes this confession on their behalf, in a chapter about restoration.
Jeremiah 3 gives details of how Israel and Judah behaved. It proclaims the restoration of Israel by God's sovereign goodness, and the blessing of the last days when they return to God. The end of the chapter dwells, in a deeply moving way, on the spirit that grace will produce in Israel when God brings them back, and on the way the Lord will receive them. It is in this chapter that we have the solemn revelation that, as far as the people were concerned, the reformation under Josiah was only hypocrisy. In verses 23-25 the prophet confesses the people's condition at the time in which he spoke.
This confession comes at the chapter's lowest point. That is where God's kindness appears.
In Jeremiah 3 we have a pleading of the Lord with them. He shows them that Israel may have been bad, but Judah would turn out no better. Judah had held out for a time and made fair promises under king Josiah. The crisis would surely come. But when a man has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
Earlier in the chapter God calls the people to return. Writers read the answer that follows, including this admission of shame, as still future.
The call which follows tells them to return and confess to the One who is married to them. It looks on to a future day… This has never yet taken place, as we know. It supposes the return of our Lord Jesus Christ to Israel as David's greater Son. Their conscience will be truly reached then, and they will return to the One they had forsaken and forgotten. "Behold we come to You", they say, "for You are the LORD our God" (v. 22). They confess their sin, owning that the salvation of Israel is in Him alone (v. 23).
The confession does not stop at personal failure. It reaches back through generations — "we and our fathers." A faithful few make the same admission in the same order in Jeremiah's Lamentations.
Here it is the confession of the remnant. First they confess their own sins. Then they add, "Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities" (Lamentations 5:7). Even in the days of Jeremiah there was a godly remnant, and the prophet speaks for them. There will be others like them in the last days. They will cry to God while they suffer, as the nation suffers, before the Lord comes to act for them.
Lying down in shame sounds like the deepest sorrow. But shame by itself can drive a person away from God rather than back to Him.
This is no proof of conversion. It is only the main proof that man has got into a bad conscience, and cannot get out of it… But do not mistake this for repentance. Shame merely drives them to hide from, and excuse themselves to, God. And so with us: as long as the shame of sin lasts, we try to hide it and get away from it. But it only drives us farther and farther from God. It is not a conscience taught by God, because we care more about the shame before men than about the sinfulness before God… our sense of the guilt of sin should always be deeper than our sense of its shame.
The shame here is spoken to God, out loud, with nothing hidden. That changes everything.
Truth may cover our faces with "shame and confusion" as we feel our shortcomings deeply. But grace restores the paths, and restores souls to walk in them. "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This is the only true place for a wounded conscience to stand. Here, and here alone, we gain a complete victory over all our sad failures. It happens when we confess all our sins and shortcomings in full, and cast ourselves on the boundless grace of our God.
- Grace speaks first. The prophet makes this confession for the people, in a chapter that proclaims restoration by God's own goodness.
- Grace waits for the bottom. Outward reform under king Josiah promised much and failed. When a person has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
- Grace produces the confession. The shame is the spirit grace creates in a people brought back, not the price they pay to be brought back.
- Grace reaches the whole record. The confession owns present sin first, then the fathers' — a whole history admitted, not one incident.
- Grace, not shame, restores. Shame by itself only drives us into hiding. Pour it out to God in confession, and He forgives and cleanses.