Neville Goddard on Jeremiah 31:18-19 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Jeremiah 31 in context

Scripture Focus

18I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God.

19Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.

Jeremiah 31:18-19

Biblical Context

Chastisement leads to turning toward the Lord. Turning leads to repentance, instruction, and a humble sense of shame for past youth.

Neville's Inner Vision

Within the verse, the chastening appears not as punishment but as the psychic mechanism that awakens the self to itself. Ephraim's complaint is the cry of a state of consciousness that has forgotten its source. When the speaker says, 'turn thou me, and I shall be turned,' he awakens to the truth that change is an inward decision, not an external reform. The yoke and the bullock symbolize the resistance of habit, the mind clinging to old identifications. The turning is the turn of consciousness: a deliberate reorientation toward the I AM, the LORD my God within. After that turning, repentance follows as a seeing—the inner instruction that reveals what has been misnamed and what is real. The 'smote upon my thigh' expresses a conviction so strong it physically moves the person, a symbolic clenching of old patterns, and the resulting shame are the liberation from the reproach of youth—old self-images dissolved in light. So the verse teaches that chastening is the inner pressure that brings you to re-choose your life in God, and forgiveness and reconciliation arise as you inhabit the new state.