33:17,18
There is a quote from 1 Kings 9:5, the promise to David here. When God makes promises, He keeps promises. There would also be an everlasting priesthood. Hebrews tells us that this does not mean that there will be a continual Levitical priesthood, for that priesthood has been superseded.
33:19-22
God is stressing just how reliable His covenant is. As it says in 2 Timothy 2:13, “if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself”. Israel had utterly failed to keep the covenant, but this did not mean that God’s promises had failed. And this not merely in the sense that it wasn’t God’s fault (which it wasn’t), God would fulfil His promises, despite our disobedience. So God had made a covenant with the day and night, and we know that day and night happen every twenty four hours without fail. His covenant with Israel is just as certain. Then this section finishes with a repeat of the promise made to Abraham about his descendents being more numerous than the stars in the sky, or the grains of sand on the shore.
33:23-26
Again we have “the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah”. “Have you not noticed that these people are saying ....” These people are the Babylonians, and these verses are very similar indeed to the preceding section (33:19-22). So, first God needed to remind His own people that He had not forgotten them, His promises were eternal. Now the world needs to be reminded of this. The strength of the covenant is expressed in precisely the same terms as in the previous section. The world takes a very dangerous route when it thinks that God has abandoned His people, be that Israel or the church.
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