This week we begin worship with:
I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety.
I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.
This pair of verses are part of a prophecy in response to the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. It is God's promise to remove His wrath from them and restore them to what will then be an everlasting covenant.
I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.
But, it concludes uncharacteristically using terms that describe God's joyous response to that reconciliation as if He were a man. That is, "with all my heart and my soul". God has no need for either a "heart" (lēḇ) or a "soul" (nep̄eš). For He is spirit.
These words describe the moment God's wrath was completely assuaged, when our Lord Jesus Christ, God-incarnate, rejoiced and cried "It is finished" (John 19:30).
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