“If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them ... [then] I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be My people” (Leviticus 26:3, 12). But “if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes ... [then] the LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth” (Deuteronomy 28:15, 49; Jeremiah 5:15–18).
The division of the kingdom “They have set up kings, but not by Me: they have made princes, and I knew it not (v4). The 10-tribed House of ISRAEL set up their own monarchy in 938 BC; it was not of the Davidic line of the House of JUDAH through whom Messiah would come (Genesis 49:10, 1 Chronicles 5:2, Luke 2:11); it ended with the fall of Samaria in 722 BC. Read 1 Kings 11, especially 30–36.
“Thus saith the LORD, Ye [House of Judah] shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren, the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from Me” (1 Kings 12:24). The division of Israel into the House of ISRAEL (10 tribes) and JUDAH (2 tribes) was divinely foreordained from the beginning—“When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language; JUDAH was His sanctuary, and ISRAEL His dominion” (Psalm 114:1–2). They were two separate and distinct nations, fulfilling entirely different destinies.
Potter re-makes one, smashes the other “Israel is swallowed up: now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure” (v8). “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words. ... And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again [into] another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. ... O House of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?” (Jeremiah 18:2–6).
“Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle ... , and say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem ... Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again” (Jeremiah 19:1). Note clearly: Israel would be re-made to become in the last days the sons of God, Christians (1:10); the Jews, i.e. remnant of Judah, would be broken (Luke 19:27). Read Romans 9:18–26.
God keeps His promises Is God faithful? Does He keep His promises? Isaiah the Bible true? “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29). “Jesus Christ [came not to annul but] to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy” (Romans 15:8–9, Hosea 2:23). The House of Israel had to become as gentiles that they— and we—might believe the Gospel and be saved by grace through faith!
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