40 The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy to Yahweh; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The whole valley of the dead bodies - Probably some part of the Valley of Ben-Hinnom. Comparing Zac 2:4, the conclusion seems evident that Jeremiah's words are to be spiritually understood. His city is one that renders holy unto Yahweh what was before unclean. Compare John's new Jerusalem Revelation 21:27.
The whole valley of the dead bodies - The valley of the son of Hinnom.
And all the fields unto the brook of Kidron, unto the corner of the horse-gate toward the east - All these places, the fuller's field, etc., shall be consecrated to the Lord, and become a part of this new city; so that this will appear to be a city much more extensive than the city of Jerusalem ever was; and to be suited to that time, when the people shall have the law written in their hearts, and God shall have filled the land with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. Talia saecla currite! "Make speed, ye happy times!"
And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes,.... The Targum paraphrases it,
"where the carcasses of the Assyrian army fell;''
Sennacherib's army, destroyed by an angel; and so Jarchi and Kimchi; which latter observes, that the word for "ashes" signifies "fat"; and so may describe the persons then destroyed, who were fat and lusty men: others think, more probably, that the valley of Tophet or Hinnom is here meant; so called, either from the persons that were burnt and sacrificed to Moloch; or from the carcasses of malefactors interred here; and from the ashes of the sacrifices which were brought from the temple, and laid here. This valley lay southwest of the city; it was a ditch at the foot of the mount of Calvary; where, as Monsieur Thevenot (s) says, now stands the chapel of the invention of the cross:
and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron; such as the potters and fullers' fields, which lay to the south of the city, or more to the east, where Kidron was situated:
unto the corner of the horse gate towards the east; and so the compass is fetched round the city to the eastern part of it, from whence it began, even to the tower of Hananeel, which was on the east of this horse gate; see 2-Kings 11:16. The Targum renders it,
"to the corner of the gate of the house of the king's course;''
supposed to be the gate at which the king's horses went in and out, when led to be watered or exercised:
shall be holy unto the Lord; that is, the whole city in its utmost compass thus rebuilt, yea, even the out parts of it, and those that were defiled with the carcasses of men, and ashes of the burnt offerings. It seems to respect the extensive holiness of the church of God in the latter day; compare with it Zac 14:10;
it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever; which, if understood literally of the city of Jerusalem, can only signify, that it should not be destroyed soon, but should continue a long time; for certain it is, that after it was rebuilt by Zerubbabel, it was plucked up, and thrown down by the Romans, and particularly by Hadrian, who ploughed it up, and built another city, and called it by his own name; but this figuratively rather intends the church of Christ, which is built on him the Rock, and so is immovable; and, like Mount Zion, shall abide for ever.
(s) Travels, par. 1. ch. 39. p. 189.
valley of . . . dead--Tophet, where the bodies of malefactors were cast (Isaiah 30:33), south of the city.
fields . . . Kidron--so 2-Kings 23:4. Fields in the suburbs reaching as far as Kidron, east of the city.
horse gate--Through it the king's horses were led forth for watering to the brook Kidron (2-Kings 11:16; Nehemiah 3:28).
for ever--The city shall not only be spacious, but both "holy to the Lord," that is, freed from all pollutions, and everlasting (Joel 3:17, Joel 3:20; Revelation 21:2, Revelation 21:10, Revelation 21:27).
In Jeremiah 31:40, without any change of construction, the southern border is described. "The whole valley of the corpses and of the ashes...shall be holy to Jahveh," i.e., be included within the space occupied by the new city. By "the valley of the corpses and of the ashes" expositors generally and rightly understand the valley of Ben-hinnom (פּגרים are the carcases of animals that have been killed, and of men who have been slain through some judgment of God and been left unburied). Jeremiah applies this name to the valley, because, in consequence of the pollution by Josiah of the place where the abominations had been offered to Moloch (2-Kings 23:10), it had become a sort of slaughtering-place or tan-yard for the city. According to Leviticus 6:3, דּשׁן means the ashes of the burnt-offerings consumed on the altar. According to Leviticus 4:12 and Leviticus 6:4, these were to be carried from the ash-heap near the altar, out of the city, to a clean place; but they might also be considered as the gross deposit of the sacrifices, and thus as unclean. Hence also it came to pass that all the sweepings of the temple were probably brought to this place where the ashes were, which thus became still more unclean. Instead of השּׁרמות, the Qeri requires השּׁדמות , and, in fact, the former word may not be very different from שׁדמות קדרון, 2-Kings 23:4, whither Josiah caused all the instruments used in idolatrous worship to be brought and burned. But it is improbable that שׁרמות is a mere error in transcription for שׁדמות. The former word is found nowhere else; not even does the verb שׁרם occur. The latter noun, which is quite well known, could not readily be written by mistake for the former; and even if such an error had been committed, it would not have gained admission into all the MSS, so that even the lxx should have that reading, and give the word as ̓Ασαρημώθ, in Greek characters. We must, then, consider שׁרמות as the correct reading, and derive the word from Arab. srm, or s]rm, or s[rm, "to cut off, cut to pieces," in the sense of "ravines, hollows" (Arab. s]arm), or loca abscissa, places cut off or shut out from the holy city. "Unto the brook of Kidron," into which the valley of Ben-hinnom opens towards the east, "unto the corner of the horse-gate towards the east." The horse-gate stood on the site of the modern "Dung-gate" (Ba=b el Mogha=riebh), in the wall which ran along from the south-east end of Zion to the western border of Ophel (see on Nehemiah 3:28), so that, in this verse before us, it is the south and south-eastern boundaries of the city that are given; and only the length of the eastern side, which enclosed the temple area, on to the north-eastern corner, has been left without mention, because the valley of the Kidron here formed a strong boundary.
The extent of the new city, as here given, does not much surpass that of old Jerusalem. Only in the west and south are tracts to be included within the city, and such tracts, too, as had formerly been excluded from the old city, as unclean places. Jeremiah accordingly announces, not merely that there will be a considerable increase in the size of Jerusalem, but that the whole city shall be holy to the Lord, the unclean places in its vicinity shall disappear, and be transformed into hallowed places of the new city. As being sacred to the Lord, the city shall no more be destroyed.
From this description of Jerusalem which is to be built anew, so that the whole city, including the unclean places now outside of it, shall be holy, or a sanctuary of the Lord, it is very evident that this prophecy does not refer to the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exile, but, under the figure of Jerusalem, as the centre of the kingdom of God under the Old Testament, announces the erection of a more spiritual kingdom of God in the Messianic age. The earthly Jerusalem was a holy city only in so far as the sanctuary of the Lord, the temple, had been built in it. Jeremiah makes no mention of the rebuilding of the temple, although he had prophesied the destruction, not only of the city, but also of the temple. But he represents the new city as being, in its whole extent, the sanctuary of the Lord, which the temple only had been, in ancient Jerusalem. Cf. as a substantial parallel, Zac 14:10-11. - The erection of Jerusalem into a city, within whose walls there shall be nothing unholy, implies the vanquishment of sin, from which all impurity proceeds; it is also the ripe fruit of the forgiveness of sins, in which the new covenant, which the Lord will make with His people in the days to come, consists and culminates. This prophecy, then, reaches on to the time when the kingdom of God shall have been perfected: it contains, under an old Testament dress, the outlines of the image of the heavenly Jerusalem, which the seer perceives at Patmos in its full glory. This image of the new Jerusalem thus forms a very suitable conclusion to this prophecy regarding the restoration of Israel, which, although it begins with the deliverance of the covenant people from their exile, is yet thoroughly Messianic. Though clothed in an Old Testament dress, it does not implicitly declare that Israel shall be brought back to their native land during the period extending from the time of Cyrus to that of Christ; but, taking this interval as its stand-point, it combines in one view both the deliverance from the exile and the redemption by the Messiah, and not merely announces the formation of the new covenant in its beginnings, when the Christian Church was founded, but at the same time points to the completion of the kingdom of God under the new covenant, in order to show the whole extent of the salvation which the Lord will prepare for His people who return to Him. If these last verses have not made the impression on Graf's mind, that they could well have formed the original conclusion to the prophecy which precedes, the reason lies simply in the theological inability of their expositor to get to the bottom of the sacred writings.
The valley - A valley, so called from the multitude of Sennacherib's army slain there. Of the ashes - So called from the ashes of the sacrifices carried thither. Holy - All these places shall be parts of the holy city, and God's name shall be sanctified, and he shall be worshipped in them all. For ever - If we interpret the word for ever of a perpetuity, the church of God must here be understood, against which the gates of hell shall never prevail.
*More commentary available at chapter level.