NOTES for Jer 31:10

In today's reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord says that He will gather His people, but from His words one can conclude that He also scattered them. I imagine this picture: the people of God are like a handful of grains in His palms. These grains quarrel among themselves and loudly declare that they do not want to lie in the handful and in general know for themselves what they should do and how to live. And the Lord opens His palms, and the grains scatter over the ground. But since God did not plant them, but precisely let them go, they lie on stones where they cannot sprout at all. And when the disobedient grains understand that they have, as it were, received the 'freedom' they themselves wanted, but in fact are simply lost and terribly lonely, then the Lord gathers them again into His hands in order to plant them where He intended to plant them. And now, having learned all the 'joys' of false freedom, they receive His help with gratitude. Something similar happens to each of us...