Jeremiah 7:7

Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) For ever and ever.—Literally, from eternity to eternity, or, perhaps, from age to age. The English punctuation connects these words with “I will cause you to dwell,” but the accentuation of the Hebrew with “I gave to your fathers;” the gift was to have been in perpetuity (Genesis 17:8), but the guilt of the people had brought about its forfeiture.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:1-16 No observances, professions, or supposed revelations, will profit, if men do not amend their ways and their doings. None can claim an interest in free salvation, who allow themselves in the practice of known sin, or live in the neglect of known duty. They thought that the temple they profaned would be their protection. But all who continue in sin because grace has abounded, or that grace may abound, make Christ the minister of sin; and the cross of Christ, rightly understood, forms the most effectual remedy to such poisonous sentiments. The Son of God gave himself for our transgressions, to show the excellence of the Divine law, and the evil of sin. Never let us think we may do wickedness without suffering for it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Why then do not the Jews still possess a land thus eternally given them? Because God never bestows anything unconditionally. The land was bestowed upon them by virtue of a covenant Genesis 17:7; the Jews had broken the conditions of this covenant Jeremiah 7:5-6, and the gift reverted to the original donor.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. The apodosis to the "if … if" (Jer 7:5, 6).

to dwell—to continue to dwell.

for ever and ever—joined with "to dwell," not with the words "gave to your fathers" (compare Jer 3:18; De 4:40).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Then, i.e. upon this condition, that you will return unto me, then either I will establish and fix you in the land; or, as anciently read, sachanti in kal, I will dwell, viz. amongst you in this place, otherwise not.

In this place, viz. Judea, both in Jerusalem and the whole country, as the next words manifest.

For ever and ever, i.e. from age to age, as your fathers did before you from the days of Joshua until now.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then will I cause you to dwell in this place,.... In the land of Judea, and not suffer them to be carried captive, which they had been threatened with, and had reason to expect, should they continue in their sins, in their impenitence and vain confidence:

in the land that I gave to your fathers; to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by promise; and to the Jewish fathers in the times of Joshua, by putting them in actual possession of it:

for ever and ever: for a great while; a long time, as Kimchi explains it; from the days of Abraham for ever, even all the days of the world, provided they and their children walked in the ways of the Lord. This clause may either be connected with the word "dwell", or with the word give; and the sense is, either that they should dwell in it for ever and ever; or it was given to their fathers for ever and ever.

Geneva Study Bible

Then {b} will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

(b) God shows on what condition he made his promise to this temple that they would be a holy people to him, as he would be a faithful God to them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. -Forever and ever. It is doubtful, both here and in Jeremiah 25:5, whether these words should be joined to "gave" or "cause you to dwell." Still, the latter connection is both in itself the more probable one, and that suggested first of all by the accentuation (this, however, is not here decisive). It was not the extent of the original premise, but that of the enjoyment of the gift, which was in question. A more exact rendering of the prophet's formula is that of the Septuagint ἐξ αἰῶνος καὶ ἕως αἰῶνος: i.e. from the most remote antiquity to the most distant future. Jeremiah 7:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Over against such sayings Jeremiah puts that which is the indispensable condition of continued sojourn in the land. כּי, Jeremiah 7:5, after a preceding negative clause, means: but on the contrary. This condition is a life morally good, that shall show itself in doing justice, in putting away all unrighteousness, and in giving up idolatry. With אם begins a list of the things that belong to the making of one's ways and doings good. The adjunct to משׁפּט, right, "between the man and his neighbour," shows that the justice meant is that they should help one man to his rights against another. The law attached penalties to the oppression of those who needed protection - strangers, orphans, widows; cf. Exodus 22:21., Deuteronomy 24:17., Jeremiah 27:19; and the prophets often denounce the same; cf. Isaiah 1:17, Isaiah 1:23; Isaiah 10:2; Ezekiel 22:7; Zechariah 7:10; Malachi 3:5; Psalm 94:6, etc. for 'לא־ת is noteworthy, but is not a simple equivalent for it. Like ου ̓ μή, כ̓ב implies a deeper interest on the part of the speaker, and the sense here is: and ye be really determined not to shed innocent blood (cf. Ew. 320, b). Hitz.'s explanation, that אל is equal to אשׁר לא or אם לא, and that it her resumes again the now remote אם, is overturned by the consideration that אל is not at the beginning of the clause; and there is not the slightest probability in Graf's view, that the אל must have come into the text through the copyist, who had in his mind the similar clause in Jeremiah 22:3. Shedding innocent blood refers in part to judicial murders (condemnation of innocent persons), in part to violent attacks made by the kings on prophets and godly men, such as we hear of in Manasseh's case, 2 Kings 21:16. In this place (Jeremiah 7:7), i.e., first and foremost Jerusalem, the metropolis, where moral corruption had its chief seat; in a wider sense, however, it means the whole kingdom of Judah (Jeremiah 7:3 and Jeremiah 7:7). "To your hurt" belongs to all the above-mentioned transgressions of the law; cf. Jeremiah 25:7. "In the land," etc., explains "this place." "From eternity to eternity" is a rhetorically heightened expression for the promise given to the patriarchs, that God would give the land of Canaan to their posterity for an everlasting possession, Genesis 17:8; although here it belongs not to the relative clause, "that I gave," but to the principal clause, "cause you to dwell," as in Exodus 32:13.