This verse anticipates a time when the schism caused by Jeroboam is over. Ephraimite watchmen equally with the tribe of Judah watch for the new moon that they may go up to Jerusalem to keep the appointed Feasts.

For there shall be a day - Literally, for this is the day, or the day is come. The watchmen - the prophets.

Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion - Let both Israelites and Jews join together in the worship of the Lord.

For there shall be a day,.... The whole Gospel dispensation is "a day", made so by the bright rising of the sun of righteousness; here it seems to design some certain fixed period of time in that dispensation, when the light of the Gospel will break out most gloriously, and it will be a clear day; as it will be when the Jews will be converted:

that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim; the same with the mountains of Samaria; for Samaria was the head or metropolis of Ephraim, Isaiah 7:9; and these are the watchmen that kept the vines there, Jeremiah 31:5; for the allusion is not to watchmen of states and cities, but to watchers of vineyards, and to such the ministers of the Gospel are compared, Sol 1:6. Grotius thinks there is an allusion in the word "Notzerim" to the title of Nazarenes, given to Christ and his followers; and Abarbinel the Jew on the place observes, that the prophet, by the Holy Ghost, foresaw that the Romans would believe in Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore would be called Nazarenes from him; see Acts 24:5; so that Christian ministers may be well thought to be here intended: who

shall cry, arise ye; lift up their voice like a trumpet, and cry aloud to persons as asleep, or in dead and lifeless frames, to awake, arouse, and rise up, and shake off their sloth and indolence, saying:

and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God; to the church of God, to attend the word of God, his worship and ordinances; to which sometimes there is a backwardness, arising from sloth, from a lukewarm frame of spirit, from a love of the world, and a vain conceit of their own sufficiency and knowledge; and it is the business of Gospel ministers to stir up persons to frequent the house of God, and attend public worship in it; since it is not only their duty, but their interest and privilege; here they have true pleasure, and real profit; and it is to their honour to continue here, and not forsake the assembling of themselves together: but they should not rest here, trusting to, and depending on, these things; but should go "to the Lord their God"; not only seek and pray unto him, but should be desirous of hearing of him, and from him; of seeing him, his power and his glory, and him in his beauty; and of having communion with him; and should exercise faith upon him as their own God. Christ seems to be intended; going to him is exercising faith upon him, for righteousness and strength, peace, pardon, life, and salvation; and saying, as Thomas did, "my Lord, and my God", John 20:28.

Jeremiah 31:6 is attached to the foregoing by כּי, which introduces the reason of what has been stated. The connection is as follows: This prosperous condition of Ephraim is to be a permanent one; for the sin of Jeroboam, the seduction of the ten tribes from the sanctuary of the Lord, shall not continue, but Ephraim shall once more, in the future, betake himself to Zion, to the Lord his God. "There is a day," i.e., there comes a day, a time, when watchmen call. נצרים here denotes the watchmen who were posted on the mountains, that they might observe and given notice of the first appearance of the crescent of the moon after new-moon, so that the festival of the new-moon and the feasts connected with it might be fixed; cf. Keil's Bibl. Archol. ii. 74, Anm. 9 see also the articles Mond and Neumond in Herzog's Real-Encykl. vols. ix. and x.; New-moon in Smith's Bible Dictionary, vol. ii.]. עלה, to go up to Jerusalem, which was pre-eminent among the cities of the land as to spiritual matters.

For there shall be a day, that the {i} watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to {k} Zion to the LORD our God.

(i) The ministers of the word.

(k) They will exhort all to the embracing of the gospel, as in Isa 2:3.

31:6 Arise - This was fulfilled under the gospel; for both Galilee and Samaria received the gospel.

6. The watchmen stationed on eminences (types of the preachers of the gospel), shall summon the ten tribes to go up to the annual feasts at Jerusalem ("Zion"), as they used to do before the revolt and the setting up of the idol calves at Dan and Beer-sheba (Eze 37:21, 22).

Mount Ephraim-not one single mountain, but the whole mountainous region of the ten tribes.

our God-from whom we formerly revolted, but who is now our God. An earnest of that good time to come is given in the partial success of the gospel in its first preaching in Samaria (Joh 4:1-42; Ac 8:5-25).

31:1-9 God assures his people that he will again take them into covenant relation to himself. When brought very low, and difficulties appear, it is good to remember that it has been so with the church formerly. But it is hard under present frowns to take comfort from former smiles; yet it is the happiness of those who, through grace, are interested in the love of God, that it is an everlasting love, from everlasting in the counsels, to everlasting in the continuance. Those whom God loves with this love, he will draw to himself, by the influences of his Spirit upon their souls. When praising God for what he has done, we must call upon him for the favours his church needs and expects. When the Lord calls, we must not plead that we cannot come; for he that calls us, will help us, will strengthen us. The goodness of God shall lead them to repentance. And they shall weep for sin with more bitterness, and more tenderness, when delivered out of their captivity, than when groaning under it. If we take God for our Father, and join the church of the first-born, we shall want nothing that is good for us. These predictions doubtless refer also to a future gathering of the Israelites from all quarters of the globe. And they figuratively describe the conversion of sinners to Christ, and the plain and safe way in which they are led.