Did God ever say He had cast Israel off?
Jeremiah 31 and 33.
The short answer Settled
No. Scripture quotes people saying it, and God answers them. He ties Israel's survival as a nation to the fixed order of creation, and He rules out the very reason people give for rejecting Israel: "all that they have done."
Who said it, and who answered
Jeremiah 33 does not present the casting off as God's verdict. God introduces it as what "these people have spoken" (): "The two families which the LORD has chosen, He has also cast them off."
God's reply begins with "Thus says the LORD" (). He would cast away Jacob's descendants only "If My covenant is not with day and night" (). Then the reply ends, not with abandonment, but with restoration: "For I will cause their captives to return, and will have mercy on them" ().
As sure as day and night
Jeremiah 31 makes the same point from the order of creation. God names Himself as the One "Who gives the sun for a light by day, The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night" (). Then He says, "If those ordinances depart From before Me, says the LORD, Then the seed of Israel shall also cease From being a nation before Me forever" (). Israel's continuing as a nation is as secure as the sun and moon.
Not even for what they have done
The next verse goes further: "If heaven above can be measured, And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel For all that they have done, says the LORD" (). God names Israel's conduct as the proposed reason for casting them off, and then He places that outcome behind a condition that cannot be met. The reason people give for Israel's rejection is the very reason this verse rules out.
The usual objection
The objection says that Israel's sin and rejection forfeited the promises, so God cast Israel off and gave those promises to the church.
The judgment was real. Jerusalem was under siege and Jeremiah was in prison when these words were spoken. But God does not answer the objection by denying Israel's guilt. He names "all that they have done" and still denies the outcome. He does not make Israel's standing as a nation depend on Israel's obedience here. He makes it depend on sun, moon, and stars.
The words behind it
| Word | Where | Form | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| דִּבְּרוּ לֵאמֹר dibberu lemor, "have spoken, saying" (1696, 559) | Piel perfect, third common plural, with an infinitive | The casting off is reported as what other people said. | |
| כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה koh amar YHWH, "Thus says the LORD" (3541, 559, 3068) | Adverb, Qal perfect, and the divine name | God's own answer begins here. | |
| אִם ... גַּם im ... gam, "if ... then also" (518, 1571) | ; | Conditional conjunction with an additive particle | Each casting off is placed behind a condition in creation. |
| עַל כָּל אֲשֶׁר עָשׂוּ al kol asher asu, "for all that they have done" (5921, 3605, 834, 6213) | Preposition, noun, relative particle, Qal perfect | Israel's conduct is named as the proposed reason, inside God's denial. |
No textual variants affect the conclusion.
This study checks the Greek Received Text against the Majority Text, and the written Hebrew against its traditional reading. If a difference could change a conclusion, this note explains it. Otherwise it says that none does.