God had good intentions when he delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The LORD told Moses, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:7-8). God spoke to the people of Israel from heaven and gave them the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), but a short while later, the Israelites made a golden calf and worshipped it. The people “turned aside quickly out of the way” that God had commanded them (Exodus 32:1-7). Psalm 78 conveys God’s good intentions toward his chosen people and the Israelites continual rebellion against him. It says in Psalm 78:9-12:

The Ephraimites, armed with the bow,
    turned back on the day of battle.
They did not keep God’s covenant,
    but refused to walk according to his law.
They forgot his works
    and the wonders that he had shown them.
In the sight of their fathers he performed wonders
    in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.

The psalmist indicated that the descendants of Joseph, Jacob’s favorite son, who was born to Rachel after many years of not being able to have children, refused to walk according to God’s law and forgot the extraordinary things he did to deliver them from slavery. The psalmist said, “He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap. In the daytime he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a fiery light. He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers” (Psalm 78:13-16). In spite of this, the psalmist said:

Yet they sinned still more against him,
    rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
They tested God in their heart
    by demanding the food they craved.
They spoke against God, saying,
    “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
He struck the rock so that water gushed out
    and streams overflowed.
Can he also give bread
    or provide meat for his people?” (Psalm 78:17-20)

The people of Israel’s rebellion against God was rooted in their bitterness toward him for taking them away from Egypt. The people complained about their misfortunes (Numbers 11:1) and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at” (Numbers 11:4-6).

God responded to the Israelites’ complaining by giving them what they asked for (Numbers 11:31-32). God continued to have good intentions for the people of Israel and provided for all of their needs, even after they refused to go in and take possession of the land that he had promised to give them (Numbers 14:1-10). Even when God was angry, he still did what was best for his chosen people, whom he loved and thought of as his treasured possession (Deuteronomy 7:6-8). It says in Psalm 78:21-25 regarding God’s response to the Israelites’ complaining:

Therefore, when the Lord heard, he was full of wrath;
    a fire was kindled against Jacob;
    his anger rose against Israel,
because they did not believe in God
    and did not trust his saving power.
Yet he commanded the skies above
    and opened the doors of heaven,
and he rained down on them manna to eat
    and gave them the grain of heaven.
Man ate of the bread of the angels;
    he sent them food in abundance.

God’s wrath against the descendants of Jacob was a result of their unbelief. Hebrews 3:12-19 explains that unbelief is a condition of the heart that comes from an individual’s willful refusal to be persuaded by the gospel of Jesus Christ. It states:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Falling away from God means that we have withdrawn from his presence, deserted him, rather than the other way around. After God spoke the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel, it says in Exodus 20:18-19, “The people were afraid and trembled, and they stood afar off and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.’”

God’s good intentions for the people of Israel were mentioned in a letter that the prophet Jeremiah wrote to the exiles in Babylon. Jeremiah wrote:

“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:10-14).

God’s plan of salvation was intended to give the Israelites a future and a hope that included restoration of their relationship with him. God’s goal for the people of Israel was for them to seek him with all their hearts.

Jeremiah 30:3 – 31:26 talks about God’s restoration for Israel and Judah in the context of Israel’s Messiah. “This passage promises not only the Israelites’ return from exile but also their ultimate restoration (Jeremiah 31:12)” during the Messiah’s millennial reign on earth. “Before this blessing, however, will come the great tribulation, described here as ‘a time of distress for Jacob’ (Jeremiah 30:7). This will be brought about because of Israel’s sin (Jeremiah 30:11-15), but ultimately the nation ‘shall be saved out of it’ (Jeremiah 30:7). Following this time of trouble will be the reign of the Messiah (Jeremiah 30:9, 21). The manifestation of God’s ‘everlasting love’ (Jeremiah 31:3) will be seen in his rebuilding of the nation (Jeremiah 30:17-20; 31:4-7, 28, cf. Jeremiah 1:10). Within this declaration of judgment and blessing is the prophecy of Herod’s slaughter of the infants at the time of Christ’s birth (Jeremiah 31:15, cf. Matthew 2:18)” (note on Jeremiah 30:3 – 31:26).

Jeremiah 30:3 – 31:26 is followed by a discussion of the New Covenant that Jesus established with his disciples the night before his death on the cross (Matthew 26:26-29). “This is one of the most important passages in the Old Testament and contains several specific aspects of the new covenant. It is a covenant with the whole, reunited nation of Israel, not the church which is ‘grafted in’ to Israel’s promised covenant (Romans 11:17-27). The realization of the covenant for the nation of Israel is still future (Jeremiah 31:27, 31, 38; 32:42; 33:14; Ezekiel 37:26, cf. Hebrews 8:8). The covenant is based upon the full and eternal atonement secured by Christ’s death (cf. Matthew 26:26, 27; 1 Corinthians 11:24, 25; Hebrews 9:15), which is the only means by which God can forgive sins and remember them no more (v. 34). The Covenant will be based on an individual, personal knowledge of God (vv. 33, 34) and characterized by the indwelling of God’s Spirit (Ezekiel 36:26, 27; 37:14). It will be an everlasting, eternal covenant of peace, administered by the Prince of Peace who is in the line of David (Isaiah 9:6; 55:3; Ezekiel 34:23-25; 37:24-26). Jeremiah prophesied about this covenant:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

God said the new covenant he was making with Israel was not like the old one that had to do with delivering his chosen people from slavery in Egypt. God said he would put his law within them and would “write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). God writing his law on our hearts means that he has placed within us the ability to live as he intended us to, doing what is good instead of evil (Matthew 12:33-37).

Jeremiah 31:33 is cited in Hebrews 10:16 in the midst of a discussion on the topic of sacrifices and offerings for the forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 10:1-18). Hebrews 10:11-14 states, “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” The Greek word that is translated perfected, teleioo (tel-i-oˊ-o) is “used in the epistle to the Hebrews in a moral sense meaning to make perfect, to fully cleanse from sin, in contrast to ceremonial cleansing. Moral expiation is the completion or realization of the ceremonial one (Hebrews 7:19; 9:9; 10:1, 14)” (G5048). God’s good intentions for the Israelites, as well as, for everyone who has accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, was for them to be sinless, just as Christ was when he died for the sins of the world. Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17).