Jeremiah 31:38-40

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

Footnotes

1. Jeremiah 31:38 Many times after the days of the Old Testament, Jerusalem was destroyed. Travelers in recent centuries reported it to be an almost deserted city—its buildings were ruins filled with rubble, its inhabitants numbered barely enough to populate a village. Yet not only did God’s word declare that it would be rebuilt, but also definitely and in detail it drew a word map of the exact outline which the future city would follow—from a well-known tower to the gate at a certain corner, then on over a particular hill, coming now outside the walls of the original city and taking in a large area definitely marked out by familiar landmarks. Eight details are unmistakably given here, and Zechariah adds another (Zech. 14:10). Moreover, the city’s enlargement was to be in one general direction—to the northwest. Twenty-five hundred years later, in a.d. 1935, the prophecy had been fulfilled to the letter, as if indeed with God’s “measuring line” (Jer. 31:39). What a God, and what a Book! So unlikely seemed this prophecy’s fulfillment that some commentators were of the opinion that it should be interpreted spiritually!