“Again I will build you!
You shall be built!
O virgin Israel!
Again you shall take
Your tambourines!
You shall go forth
In the dance
Of the merrymakers!
Again you shall plant vineyards
On the mountains of Samaria.
The planters shall plant.
They shall enjoy the fruit.
There shall be a day
When sentinels will call
In the hill country
Of Ephraim.
‘Come!
Let us go up to Zion!
Let us go to Yahweh
Our God.’”
Yahweh was going to build up his virgin Israel again. Once again, they would have tambourines, merrymaking, and dancing. They would be able to plant vineyards on the Samarian mountains. Clearly, this was an outreach to the old northern Israelites who had been captured in 721 BCE. Their vineyard planters would enjoy the fruit of their crops. There would even come a day when the hill country of Ephraim, just north of Benjamin, would cry out that that they were going to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh, their God. In other words, the local places of worship in the north would be abandoned. They would all worship their one God, Yahweh. This was the wish of Yahweh, via Jeremiah.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 