1: 1 THE words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah; unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month. 4, 5 Now the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for to whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go, and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid because of them: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD. Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth; and the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth: see, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to overthrow; to build, and to plant. 11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I watch over my word to perform it. And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething caldron; and the face 14 thereof is from the north. Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north evil shall break 15 forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For, lo, I will call all the families of the king- doms of the north, saith the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round 16 about, and against all the cities of Judah. And I will utter my judgements against them touching all their wickedness; in that they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto 17 other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands. Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at them, 18 lest I dismay thee before them. For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. 19 And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee. THIS chapter introduces the name of the author of this book of prophecies, the period of time which they cover, the call and commission of the prophet, and a succinct statement of the work assigned him. Its consideration should be preceded by a careful reading of the preceding introductory section, as well as a general review of Sections 44-49 in Vol. VII. of this Work, which contain the history of events collateral with Jeremiah's life. B. 1-3. The prophet's life and labors really continued somewhat later than the eleventh year and fifth month of Zedekiah. The prophecies and events recorded (chaps. 40-45) are manifestly subsequent to that. But probably it was not deemed important to be more specific in this brief introduction. The thirteenth year of Josiah was B.C. 629. From this date till the final destruction of the city (588 B.C.) was forty-one years. Jeremiah's ministry continued on yet further; how long is not known. 4, 5. "Sanctified" here means set apart to a special service, and not simply and strictly cleansed from sin. To "set apart" is the primary sense of the word. The word "ordained" Hebrew usage currently employs in the sense of appoint, make, so that "I gave thee to the service and work of a prophet for the nations" means I appointed thee to this service. The object of the Lord in saying to Jeremiah, "I had My eye on thee for My prophet to the nations before thou wast born," was to give him the greater assurance of his call, and to impress the more strongly on his mind that God had a work for him to do from which he could not be excused. The reader should not assume that God's foreknowledge was any greater or His antecedent plans any more fixed in the case of Jeremiah than in every other case. It comes not of any specialty in respect to particular individuals, but of God's essenessential nature, that He knows and plans the course of human life before its existence begins. As this knowing and planning in no-wise lessened either the personal freedom of action or the moral responsibility of Jeremiah, so neither can it overrule or in the least disturb the perfectly free agency of any other being—human, angelic, or diabolic. H. C. 5. Before I formed thee I had destined thee to the prophetic office before thou wert born: I had formed My plan, and appointed thee to be My envoy to this people. Paul speaks of his own call to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles in similar terms (Gal. 1: 15, 16). A. C.—How much of this spirit of certitude and conviction is needed for the ordinary life of the Christian? Have we the measure of it we require? or are we inefficient and useless because of our lack of it? There can be no question that such a spirit is inculcated by Christianity, and that reasonable grounds are afforded us all upon which to be thoroughly persuaded in our own mind. Acting upon our deepest convictions and most unalterable certainties is the only way to attain to a sound apprehension of Divine things and an efficient condition of service. 5-19. How He constrained Jeremiah to undertake this work. He gave him certainty as to his being called to the prophetic work. To know that we are indeed called of God to any work is an unfailing source of strength therein (verse 5). He made him feel that necessity was laid upon him; "thou shalt go;" "thou shalt speak" (verse 7). So Jeremiah himself afterward says (chap. 20: 9) God's word was like "a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay." What a help to the preacher of God's truth is such a conviction as this! He promised His presence and delivering grace (verse 8). Consciousness of security and safety in God will give a dauntless courage in the face of any and of all opposition. He gave him special qualifications for his work. Words and power of speech (verse 9). Immovable and unflinching strength of will, a determination and resolve that would not waver (verse 18). He showed him that the rooting up and the destruction were not ends in themselves, but to lead on to planting and to building afresh (verse 10). To know that we are working on to a good and blessed end is no small encouragement to us in working through all manner of difficulty to reach that end. He made him vividly realize the nature and nearness of the judgments he foretold. This was the purpose of the visions of the rod of the almond tree and the seething pot (verses 11-15). The first vision told of God's judgment close at hand. The second, of the quarter whence these judgments come, and of the fierce, furious character of the foes who should come upon them. Jeremiah was enabled to "see well" the visions—that is, to realize very forcibly what they meant. Oh, if we could but more vividly realize what the anger of God is against sin; if we could have a vision of the wrath of God; with how much more power and urgency should we plead with men to flee from the wrath to come! He reminds Jeremiah of the sins that called for these judgments (verse 16). A deep sense of sin is indispensable to those who would earnestly warn of the doom of sin. And (verse 19) God again gives His servant the blessed assurance, "They shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee to deliver thee." Thus did God equip the prophet and prepare him for his work. His God supplied all his need. It was a stern warfare on which he was to go, but he went not at his own charges. If we be summoned to difficult duty, we shall be supplied with all-sufficient strength. Only let us be careful to avail ourselves of the help assured, lest (verse 17) we be dismayed and God confound us before our enemies. Dread, therefore no commission that God entrusts thee with, for along with it will ever be found the grace, all the grace, needed for its successful discharge. P. C. 6-8. The Lord gave him to understand that He knew his qualifications, and had the grace and help of His own presence to set off against His young servant's conscious insufficiency. Hence He answered, "Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go against all to whom I send thee"—against rather than "to," as implying their foreseen antagonism to His message. H. C. When he was shown that the strength in which he was to act and speak was not his own, and that he might always reckon upon supplies of grace and strength to discharge the high duties to which he was called, he no longer sought to evade them; and although the influence of his natural temper breaks out at times in complaints that he, of all men most unsuited, as he thought, had been chosen for the place he filled, and in sighings for that retired and peaceful life he must know no more—he fulfilled his tasks with unremitting diligence and unswerving fidelity for at least forty-two years, reckoning from the thirteenth year of King Josiah. In the course of his ministry he met with much opposition and ill-treatment from his countrymen of all classes, especially of the highest. The exigencies of the times constrained him, as the commissioned prophet of the Lord, to exercise an important influence upon the public policy of the time; and the part he took, though based on the most enlarged views of true patriotism and on the most exact apprehension of the nation's only safe and wise course in the circumstances of the times, was offensive to its natural pride; and the great ones, seeing how adverse his counsels were to their own plans of aggrandizement, affected to discredit his mission, and strove to destroy his influence. His keen susceptibility to injustice and misconstruction; his deep sense of the wickedness, perversity and ungodliness of men; his consciousness that the leaders of the people were, with wilful blindness, hurrying the nation with headlong speed to its ruin, together with his painful perception of the unpopularity to which his faithful denunciations exposed him, and the general dislike with which he was regarded—all this occasionally drew from him, in the bitterness of his soul, expressions which some have found it hard to reconcile with his religious principles and his near intercourse with heaven; but which considered with due regard to his natural temper, and all the circumstances of his position, will be found far more to demand our pity than our censure. Nay, there is none of the prophets with whom we contract an acquaintance so close and sympathizing, by virtue of those very indications of the natural temper and spirit of the man, which are permitted to ripple the surface of his prophetic career, and which enables us to recognize, in one so gifted from heaven, a man and a brother. The cries by which he attests the frequent anguish of his spirit find a response in our hearts. We pity him, feel for him, love him, and this is more than can be said with regard to Isaiah, whose prophetic rapture more absorbed the individual man, and left no room for any other than feelings of admiration and awe toward him; whereas Jeremiah enlists our personal interests toward him by his starts of natural passion, and speaks to our hearts in his wails of human pain. Kitto. It is plausibly supposed that Jeremiah was at this time not far from twenty years of age. H. C. 7. He must speak all that he is charged with: "Speak all that I command thee." He must forget nothing as minute, or foreign, or not worth mentioning; every word of God is weighty. He must conceal nothing for fear of offending; he must alter nothing under pretence of making it more fashionable or more palatable, but without addition or diminution "declare the whole counsel of God." H. 9. As if to meet very significantly the point of Jeremiah's plea, "I cannot speak," the Lord puts forth His hand and touches His mouth, as if He would say, "Trust Me for grace adapted to your wants—grace to help in all your need." It had also this further significance—viz., that the young man need not be forethoughtful about words to say or messages to deliver. The Lord was to provide both the things to be said and the words in which to say them. The prophet was simply to deliver the message which the Lord might give him. 10. This is a strong yet very palpable case in which the prophet is said to do what he merely proclaims the purpose of God to do. In chap. 31:28 the Lord says of Himself, "It shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them to build and to plant." This is the work of God in His providence, and it is His alone. H. C. I have—set thee over the nations. God represents His messengers the prophets as doing what He commanded them to declare should be done. In this sense they rooted up, pulled down and destroyed; declared God's judgments: they builded up and planted; declared the promises of His mercy. Thus God says to Isaiah (6:10), Make the heart of this people fat—and shut their eyes. Show them that they are stupid and blind; and that, because they have shut their eyes and hardened their hearts, God will in His judgments leave them to their hardness and darkness. A. C. God here appoints Jeremiah to declare His purposes concerning the overthrow or restoration tion of kingdoms and nations, according as they should persist in or repent of their sins (cf. chap. 18:7). In pursuance of these directions, some of the following prophecies foretell the destruction of the Jewish and other nations (see chap. 25:15, etc.); and others predict their restoration (see chaps. 30; 31; 48:47; 49:6, 39). W. Lowth. 10-19. There is no glorious vision as in Isaiah's case; nothing of that awful and superhuman grandeur which characterizes Ezekiel's summons to the prophetic dignity. The images are tame and simple; but there is a strength of purpose indicated by them and a decisiveness in action, which were the real secret of Jeremiah's strength. In age probably just arrived at manhood—for forty years of active labor were before him, and finally, as is too probable, a martyr's death—called thus in the early beauty of youth, he sees first a branch of an almond-tree (chap. 1:11), and next a pot boiling upon a fire of thorns, and just ready to overturn from the unequal consumption of the blazing fuel. But the words that accompany these ordinary images are of startling strength. Jeremiah is set over kingdoms and nations as God's deputy on earth, with authority to "root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, and to build, and to plant;" and because in the execution of these awful powers he would have to confront the whole land, its king, its princes and people, God promises to make him firm and defiant as a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls. Young in years, despondent in temper, God yet gives him a commission of wider and fuller authority than any ever conferred before, except it be that of Moses. But even to Moses the commission was to build up and form the Jewish nation; Jeremiah's is one chiefly of condemnation and destruction. Four verbs of ruin come first in his instructions, and then two only of restoration. For such a commission nothing less seems necessary than the energy and self devotion of a Paul; but Jeremiah proved not unworthy of it. No man ever felt difficulties more; no man ever faced them with braver resolution, or more unflinchingly did his duty. R. P. S. 11,12. To teach the youthful prophet yet further concerning his work, the Lord proceeds to give him two successive visions—the first, of an almond tree, to show that the judgments to be predicted would come soon; the second, of a seething pot, to show from what quarter they would come. This of an almond-tree might indicate its own significance to Jeremiah by the sense of the Hebrew word which means the waker, the tree that wakes earliest in spring from the repose of winter. Pliny says of it that it begins to blossom in January and sometimes matures its fruit in March. Hence it becomes an expressive figure for what is to be done soon and with wakeful earnestness. But the Lord added His own interpretation: "I will hasten My word to perform it." 13-15. As said above, this second vision indicated the quarter from which these judgments should come. This "seething pot" is a pot under which the fire is blown up. We must think of this pot as out-of-doors, exposed to all winds. Its open face was from the north, so that its steam and smoke seemed to come from that quarter. Thus it indicated that the elements in that region were in commotion, and that calamity would soon open itself a way and come rushing forth from that direction. The Lord would rouse up all the families of those northern kingdoms, the assemblage of tribes and nations that were grouped together under the rule of the king of Babylon, and they should come and set up each his throne in the gates of Jerusalem. This language fitly describes the constitution of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom—a group of those powerful States which he had subjected to his sway. (See Dan. 3:29 and 4:1, 22.) It is noticeable that though Chaldea and Babylon lay east of Judah, yet their armies are said—not here alone, but usually elsewhere—to come from the north. The reason of this is that they entered Palestine from the north, going high up the valley of the Euphrates in a northwestern direction, and then coming into the land by way of Riblah and Hamath, on the north. This circuit was made to avoid the great Arabian desert which lay directly between Palestine and Chaldea. H. C. From verse 14 it appears that the evil was to come from the north; and therefore the steam, which was designed for an emblem of that evil, must have issued from that quarter. The pot denoted the empire of the Babylonians and Chaldeans, lying to the north of Judea, and pouring forth its multitudes, like a thick vapor, to overspread the land. Blayney. These comparisons had no appearance of meanness among a people accustomed to see in the temple of the Lord victims, the flesh of which was dressed in caldrons, for the use of the priests, and of the individuals who came thither to offer sacrifice. Calmet. 15. All the families of the kingdoms of the north. There were inferior kings and princes, who were either allies or tributaries to the Babylonian empire (cf. chaps. 34:1; 50:41; 51:27). God saith all these shall join their forces with the Chaldean army, in order to the conquest of Judea. The word "family" is equivalent to people here, and in chaps. 8:3; 10:25. W. Lowth. 16. This was pre-eminently the mission of Jeremiah. It was proper that here, in the outset of his work, the Lord should show him what it was to be, and prepare his mind to expect resistance and persecution. 17-19. Forewarning the prophet of an arduous and perilous work, the Lord admonished him to gird himself for the conflict and put his trust in the Lord his God. Correspondingly the Lord promises to make him strong to bear and to withstand opposition, even as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a brazen wall are firm against whatever may assail or smite them. This call at once opened a new life before this young man. It promised nothing on the score of comfort, competence, ease or honor (of the sort that comes from men). On the contrary, the Lord plainly assumed that his life-work would be bitter, toilsome, thankless, repulsive—resisted at all points by those to whom he was sent with the word of the Lord; and the only consideration presented to offset so much hardship and suffering was, "I am with thee." H. C. Jeremiah was the last of those gifted seers who combined their prophetic teaching with the active public life of statesmen and counsellors of the nation. Against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes, against the priests, against the prophets, against the people of the land, he was "to gird up his loins, and arise and speak;" he was to be the solitary fortress, the column of iron, the wall of brass, fearless, undismayed, unconfounded—the one grand, immovable figure which alone redeems the miserable downfall of his country from triviality and shame—for forty years, day by day, at early morning, standing to deliver his mournful warnings, his searching rebukes, in the royal chamber or in the Temple court. He was the prophet of unwelcome, unpalatable truth, from whose clear vision all illusions had vanished away; in whom the high poetic aspirations of former times were transformed into the hard prose of common life; yet a prose which itself becomes more poetical than poetry, because of its own exceeding tragical simplicity. Stanley. It was his mission to tell the people of their sins, to rebuke the nobles for their oppression, the humbler orders for their vileness, the priesthood for their falseness, even his fellow-prophets for their infidelity to the living God. The whole nation, from prince to beggar, had reached the very bottom of national depravity; and this lone man was set to tell them of it, and to forewarn them of the frightful doom which was impending. He was the prophet of unwelcome truth. He had to face the facts of an age of retribution. He had to tear away the illusions with which people were deceiving themselves. Phelps. 2:1, 2 AND the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD, I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals; how thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not 3 sown. Israel was holiness unto the LORD, the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall be held guilty; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD. 4 Hear ye the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of 5 Israel: thus saith the LORD, What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that 6 they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt; that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that none passed through, and where no man 7 dwelt? And I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination. 8 The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after 9 things that do not profit. Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with 10 your children's children will I plead. For pass over to the isles of Kittim, and see; and 11 send unto Kedar, and consider diligently; and see if there hath been such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which yet are no gods? but my people have changed their glory 12 for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, 13 be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that 14 can hold no water. Is Israel a servant? is he a homeborn slave? why is he become a prey? 15 The young lions have roared upon him, and yelled: and they have made his land waste; his 16 cities are burned up, without inhabitant. The children also of Noph and Tahpanhes have 17 broken the crown of thy head. Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast 18 forsaken the LORD thy God, when he led thee by the way? And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Shihor? or what hast thou to do in the way to 19 Assyria, to drink the waters of the River? Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord, 20 the LORD of hosts. For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not serve; for upon every high hill and under every green tree thou didst bow 21 thyself, playing the harlot. Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how 22 then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? For though thou wash thee with lye, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith 23 the Lord God. How canst thou say, I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing 24 her ways; a wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind in her desire; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her 25 month they shall find her. Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them 26 will I go. As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; 27 they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets; which say to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, 28 and save us. But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah. 29. Wherefore will ye plead with me? ye all have transgressed against me, saith the LORD. 30. In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath 31 devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion. O generation, see ye the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? or a land of thick darkness? wherefore say my people, 32. We are broken loose; we will come no more unto thee? Can a maid forget her ornaments, 33 or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number. How trim- 34 mest thou thy way to seek love! therefore even the wicked women hast thou taught thy 35 ways. Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor: I have not found it at the place of breaking in, but upon all these. Yet thou saidst, I am innocent; 36 surely his anger is turned away from me. Behold, I will enter into judgement with thee, 37 because thou sayest, I have not sinned. Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou shalt be ashamed of Egypt also, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria. From him also shalt thou go forth, with thine hands upon thine head: for the LORD hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them. 3:1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? But thou 2 hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD. Lift up thine eyes unto the bare heights, and see; where hast thou not been lien with? By the ways hast thou sat for them, as an Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the 3 land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; yet thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou re- 4 fusedst to be ashamed. Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the 5 guide of my youth? Will he retain his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and hast done evil things, and hast had thy way. Chap. 2. This chapter and the first five verses of the third constitute one message. Unlike most of Jeremiah's special messages, this stands without date. In favor of dating it among the very earliest of his prophecies, say in the thirteenth year of Josiah (1:2 and 25:3), are its location first in order in the book; the implied apostasy of the people from God, which is such as the very long and very wicked reign of Manasseh must have induced; and the adaptation of such a message from the Lord's prophet to promote the great reformation which the good Josiah commenced in earnest but one year previously. H. C. The prophecy begun in this chapter is continued to the end of the fifth verse of the next chapter. In it God professes to retain the same kindness and favorable disposition toward Israel which He had manifested in their earlier days. He expostulates with them on their ungrateful returns for His past goodness; and shows that it was not want of affection in Him, but their own extreme and unparalleled wickedness and disloyalty, which had already subjected and would still subject them to calamities and misery. He concludes with a pathetic address, exhorting them to return to Him, with an implied promise of acceptance. Blayney. 1-3. The Lord tacitly compares His own covenant relation to the Jews with that most tender and precious of all human relations, the marriage state. Then, with a happy allusion to the warmth of interest and affection common to the recently betrothed or wedded, he says, "I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thy betrothal"—i.e., the love shown by the people when they followed His leadings through that ancient wilderness of Sinai. These great truths—the nation protected while obedient, and, when disobedient, unprotected and scourged, with impunity to their chastisers—fill out the whole history of the covenant people. We may fitly note how beautifully and winningly this reference to the early love existing between the Lord and His covenant people stands at the head of the expostulations and rebukes that so largely fill this Book of Jeremiah. The Lord would have them understand how gladly He would welcome the nation back to the early warmth of their love, and no less to the eternal warmth of His! H. C. 2. Behold the similitude of marriage to the union between Christ and the Church! This latter relation, also, is that of a union based on covenant; on a mutual engagement to fidelity between the contracting parties. This sacred union has its day of espousals in the present life. The marriage to which it looks forward is to be celebrated, in solemn and royal state, on the morning of the greatest day of days. And the parties who here enter into this holy state of covenant are regarded by the Bible as already one; that is, as united in a bond which supposes a common love, which creates a common interest, and which, spiritually understood and discharged, looks forward to a common destiny. J. S. Stone. 3. God appropriated them to Himself; though they were a sinful people, yet by virtue of the covenant made with them, and the Church set up among them, they were "holiness to the Lord," dedicated to His honor, and taken under His special tuition: they were the "first-fruits of His increase," the first constituted Church He had in the world; they were the first-fruits, but the full harvest was to be gathered from among the Gentiles. The "first-fruits of the increase" were God's part of it, were offered to Him, and He was honored with them; so were the people of the Jews; what little tribute, rent and homage God had from the world He had it chiefly from them; and it was their honor to be thus set apart for God. This honor have all the saints; they are the "first-fruits of His creatures" (James 1:18). H. The spiritual plan of God in the earth is to bring men into holiness, and happiness that springs from holiness, through fellowship with His own Spirit incorporated with His Son and revealed by His Holy Ghost. For that He preserved the race after it had fallen; for that He sent prophet and seer and songster; for that He sent His Son into the world that He might make men partakers of His holiness—not of an austere and rigorous morality merely, not of sentimental holiness merely—of His holiness, sweet and tender and mighty. That He might make men partakers of that holiness Christ came into the world, and for the same end the Spirit comes, and for the same end the Church exists. R. S. S. 4-6. The fathers of the generation then living ing had begun this fearful apostasy from their God into idolatry, and now God appeals to their children to say if it were for any fault of His, and if any, for what? They, not God, had broken covenant. Could they charge any wrong upon Him? What perverse thing had He ever done to justify them in turning aside at all from the path of humble, honest obedience? What had their God done that they should turn away from Him to go after mere wind and emptiness, and become so utterly foolish? This last phrase—"walking after vanity and becoming vain"—occurs somewhat frequently. It most fitly describes the supreme folly and guilt of turning from the living God to dead idols, mere nothings, unsubstantial as a puff of air. 7-11. The same course of thought continues—the manner of address changing from the third person to the second—passing from speaking of the fathers to speaking directly to the children then living, and then addressed by the prophet in the name of the Lord. It is a remarkable, strong and clear showing in the light of reason, that His priests and people were utterly foolish and fearfully guilty. H. C.—They had with idolatry introduced all manner of wickedness. When they entered into the good land which God gave them, they defiled it by defiling themselves, and disfitting themselves for the service of God. It was God's land; they were but tenants to Him, sojourners in it (Lev. 25:23). It was His heritage, for it was a holy land, Immanuel's land; but they "made it an abomination" even to God Himself, who was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel. H. 12,13. The thing so revolting and so horrible in the eye of reason is that God's people forsake Him and go after false, idol gods instead. For God is a fountain of blessings, never failing, ever pure, flowing abundantly and freely, meeting every want most perfectly, and bearing a glorious wealth of good to His people; yet they spurn this fountain and set themselves to hew out worthless cisterns that cannot hold water, whose waters are soon foul, and their supply sure to fail in the day of real need. To get the full force of this figure we may think of an Oriental, half-torrid climate on a wild, parched Arabian desert, where water is the first necessity of human existence—where half the year is rainless, and the miserable sojourners are fain to betake themselves to building cisterns as a last resort for sustaining life. Under such circumstances, no man not positively insane could be so senseless and foolish as to forsake a fresh, perennial fountain to toil over a frail, uncertain cistern. It is only in religion that men, otherwise intelligent and sensible, make themselves fools! Oh, might they only consider that it is infinitely better to come to God, the great Fountain of all good, and live in Him, than to repel His love and care, and perpetrate the folly of toiling at one's own cistern, in the vain hope of living independently of God! Alas, that men in all ages are so slow to learn that God is a fountain of unmeasured blessedness! Taken together, these strongest terms in the language show how intensely amazed all the holy in heaven are at the monstrous folly of human sinning. That when men might have the infinite God for their Friend, they choose to have Him their enemy; that when they might have Him their exhaustless portion of unmeasured and eternal good, they spurn Him away, and set themselves to the fruitless task of making some ruinous substitute; this is beyond measure amazing! Verily, sin is a mockery of human reason! H. C. Broken cisterns the people of Israel seem to have known only too well. Dr. Thomson says there are thousands such in Upper Galilee, which, though dug in hard rock and apparently sound, are all dry in winter; at best they are an uncertain source of supply, and the water, when collected, is bad in color and taste, and full of worms. The whole action, then, of the character here indicated is scarcely conceivable, unless as the expression of fear in a diseased mind. In somewhat of this way we have heard of men acting, who, after having made great fortunes, have become victims to the horrid delusion that they are paupers, and must make some sort of provision against utter destitution. So we might imagine the victim of delusion, with fountains all round him, still insisting upon having some sort of cistern provided. Note, moreover, that the aspect of folly becomes more decided when we consider that it is water which is treated in this way. The water which is offered so freely and continuously in the fountain is a thing which man needs, and yet it is for the supply of that which is a great and may be a painful need that he is represented as depending on broken cisterns which with great toil he has constructed for himself. P. C. Travellers tell us that sometimes they find the path leading to the fountain of the desert strewn with the bones of those who have perished from thirst. They even find skulls, whitened and bleached, bending over the very edge of the fountain. Why? The men dying with thirst discovered that the cistern was brobroken and empty. Christ is not a broken cistern. The world is. Human philosophy is. Christ is a fountain of life full and inexhaustible. Gregg. Although man has forsaken God, the fountain of living water, he has not given up the desire for something to satisfy the thirst of his spirit. He seeks light for the mind, love for the heart, peace for the soul; he seeks honor and glory. He is not content with existence; he wishes to live; he wants fulness of life, vigorous, joyous, long-enduring. He still wants water, though he has left God. This it is which he seeks in broken cisterns. And yet God is the only fountain of living water. Saphir. Many are content that God should be their happiness in another world, who will not take Him as such in this. Here they have other objects of pursuit, which engross their time and captivate their affections. They want not God. Their service is for what they may get from Him, not for what they find in Him. They are ever setting up this or that vanity, idolizing the creature, and saying to it, "Thou shalt be a god to me," while they turn away from the uncreated spring of blessedness. So God complains of His people by the prophet, "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." And alas! the foolish hearts, even of His own children, are ever prone to do the same—to look elsewhere for satisfying good, and set their affections upon that which is not. Many a rod which falls heavy in the providence of God brings this message along with it, "I will be to you a God." In this way, as well as by direct communications of Himself in goodness to the soul, winning its affections and charming it away from created good, does God teach His people to take Him as their all—their present, as well as their everlasting portion. Goode. 19. It was scarcely necessary that God should Himself reprove them. Their own sins reproved and rebuked them so manifestly that they had only to look at the case to see that their forsaking God was all wrong, bitterly and ruinously so, even against themselves. H. C. "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and then it is impossible to save thee; know and see therefore, upon the whole matter, that it is an evil thing that thou hast forsaken God, for that is it that makes thine enemies enemies indeed, and thy friends friends in vain." The nature of sin is "forsaking the Lord" as our God; it is the soul's alienation from Him and aversion to Him. Cleaving to sin is leaving God. The cause of sin is because "His fear is not in us." It is for want of a good principle in us, particularly for want of the fear of God; this is at the bottom of our apostasy from Him; therefore men forsake their duty to God, because they stand in no awe of Him, nor have any dread of His displeasure. Sin is "an evil thing" and a "bitter." Sin is an evil thing that has no good in it; an evil that is the root and cause of all other evil; it is evil indeed, for it is not only the greatest contrariety to the Divine nature, but the greatest corruption of the human nature. It is "bitter;" a state of sin is the "gall of bitterness," and every sinful way will be "bitterness in the latter end;" the wages of it is death, and death is bitter. Sin, as it is in itself evil and bitter, so it has a direct tendency to make us miserable: "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee;" not only destroy and ruin thee hereafter, but correct and reprove now; they will certainly bring trouble upon thee; the punishment will so inevitably follow the sin that the sin shall itself be said to punish thee. Nay, the punishment, in its kind and circumstances, shall so directly answer to the sin, that thou mayest read the sin in the punishment; and the justice of the punishment shall be so plain, that thou shalt not have a word to say for thyself, thy own wickedness shall convince thee and stop thy mouth forever, and thou shalt be forced to own that "the Lord is righteous." The use and application of all this: "Know therefore, and see it, and repent of thy sin, that so the iniquity which is thy correction, may not be thy ruin." H. It is an evil thing and bitter. This is applicable to individuals as well as to nations. Life was not intended to be led inconsistently; one part in doing wrong, the other in being sorry for it. Uniform obedience is our Maker's demand; and whoever departs from it wilfully, though he may return, will assuredly be made to "know and see," one way or other, that "it is a thing evil and bitter, that he hath forsaken the Lord his God." Abp. Secker. We sometimes speak of the hidings of God's countenance, as if it were a sovereign act, calling for implicit submission; when the cause should at least be sought for, and will generally be found, in some "secret thing" of indulgence, unwatchfulness or self-dependence. It was while David "kept silence" from the language of contrition that he felt the pressure of the heavy hand of his frowning God; and may not the darkness, which has sometimes clouded our path, be the voice of our God: "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know therefore and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God." Bridges. 21,22. The Lord says that their sin cannot be washed out by any effort of theirs. The corruption had gone too deep. These verses show that the nation began its national life well, mainly right before God. But they had become utterly degenerate and incurably corrupt. H. C. 22. For though thou wash thee with nitre. Though thou endeavorest to wash away thy sins by the rites of expiation prescribed by the law, or practised by idolaters; though thou insistest upon thy own innocence and justification (verse 23), yet the "marks" or stains of thy sins will always appear in the sight of God till they are cleansed by a sincere repentance and reformation. W. Lowth. Although we allow that good works are merit, and that merit is atonement, where are the good works of the sinner, where is the merit of the man who, the more works he produces, is producing so many more sins? As soon might you hope to bleach the rocks of Siddim white as snow by washing them with their own black bitumen, as hope to wash out sinful deeds with sinful deeds, old sins with new. For, alas! till a man is born from above, sin is his essence; selfishness, ungodliness, runs through all his actions, gives its pestilent aroma to his prayers, its darkening tincture to his tears. And though he could bathe his youthful years in the waters of a weeping and repentant manhood, or embalm his former sins in the virtues of his later life, after all, it would only be an Ethiopian washed in ink, impurity purged with more impurity; and in regard to the abortive attempt, Jehovah would say, "Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take ever so much soap, yet is thine iniquity marked before Me, saith the Lord." Hamilton. 23,24. This setting forth of the senseless and reckless intoxication of the people in idol worship is exceedingly caustic, and might well put them to shame. They had become bestial, and were no longer rational in the indulgence of their passion for idols. H. C. 23. See thy way in the valley. See how thou hast practised the grossest idolatry in the valley; alluding to those idolatrous acts which were practised in the valley of Hinnom. Blayney.—The horrible practice of the Jewish idolaters, in burning their sons and their daughters in the fire, effectually confuted their pretences to innocence, since this way of worship had been expressly forbidden by God (Lev. 20 : 2, etc.). W. Lowth. 25. The passage suggests that in many cases the plea of despair is not half honest. The heart takes it up simply as an apology for rushing headlong and madly into sin. To quiet conscience and to seem to lend some ear to reason, men try and even pretend to think there is no longer any hope from God, and hence that they may as well get all the good from sin they can while they can get any. The underlying impulse is given in our text, "I have loved sin, and will follow it." 26-28. The whole people of Israel, both their civil and their religious leaders, are put to shame by their idols, it is so senseless and ridiculous to say to a wooden pillar (a "stock"), "Thou art my father," and to a stone, "Thou art my mother." They will come to shame yet more when in the hour of their need they shall call on these idols for help and get none. The Lord suggests to them to try the experiment of calling on these new gods for salvation in their calamity. H. C. In the time of trouble they say, Save us. Calamity is the test. While things go well with the idolater he forgets God or consciously dishonors Him. But when he is overtaken with the consequences of his evil deeds he is not ashamed to call upon God. The unreasonableness and inconsistency of this conduct are no barrier to it. Beneath the unbelief and worldliness of men there is a tacit belief in the goodness and power of God. In prosperity they are idolaters, in adversity they find their way back to the God they had despised. This is the universal and permanent inconsistency of the world life. P. C. 27. Turned the back to Me.** What is the opposite of conversion? It is a terrible word, because God is our only Good, our Hope, our All; but it is, you know, aversion. If we are not turned to God, we are turned away from Him. It is a terrible word, because it is so outspoken, so true, and God is so good. Yet God tells us plainly what we are doing. But is it not so true? Is there any thought which men so try to get rid of, unless they are obeying Him, as the thought of God? For it is the thought of a Master who is disobeyed, a Father who is dishonored, a Benefactor to whom we are ungrateful, an Almighty who is defied, an Indweller who is chased away, a Judge who can punish. It speaks of engageengagements broken, duties violated, conscience silenced. Pusey. 28. It is the sin of His people that provokes Him, instead of looking favorably upon them, to have His eyes upon them for evil and not for good, as He threatens (Amos 9 : 4); and therefore, without putting away of that, prayer is lost breath, and doth no good. They that still retain their sins and will not hearken to His voice, what can they expect but that the Lord, in holy scorn, in the day of their distress, should send them for help and comfort to those things which they have made their gods, and preferred before Him in their trouble? They will say, Arise and save us; but where are the gods that thou hast made? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble. Leighton. 30. Chastisement had done them no good. It had utterly failed to impress any just sense of their sin, or even to induce serious thought. No moral state possible to a moral being can be more alarming than this—to be so hardened that discipline, adapted for correction and improvement, proves utterly unavailing for any good, and only serves to aggravate the sinner's obduracy and strengthen his committal of heart against God. H. C. In vain have I smitten your children. The design of God's judgments is men's reformation; and where they do not attain this end, it shows that such a people are incorrigible. The people of Judea were so far from "receiving correction," and turning God's chastisements to their own improvement, that they put to death the prophets who, in God's name, reproved them and exhorted them to repentance. Blayney. 35. Such was their strange moral blindness, that though they had murdered the faithful prophets of God, and thus innocent blood was found upon them, yet they supposed themselves quite innocent, and thought that God's anger had all passed away. H. C. 37. Why the confidences of men do not prosper. The people of Israel are set forth, even within the limits of this one chapter, as having multiplied and extended their confidences; and yet it could not be said that they were prospering. Men with the religious element in their nature strongly clamoring for satisfaction had turned to the gods of neighboring nations, and multiplied these objects of worship until it could be said, "According to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah." God compares them to thirsty people who, with a copious fountain in their midst, work and toil to make cisterns, only to find that the end of their labor is in broken cisterns which can hold no water. And then, when their broken cisterns had proved quite unavailing, they fly to drink of Nile and of Euphrates. Evidently their confidence had not prospered, and a continuance and increase of adversity was threatened, the cause of it all being that their confidences were such as God, in His righteousness and majesty, must inevitably reject. P. C. Chap. 3. In this chapter, verses 1-5 are connected with chap. 2, with its last two verses very closely, and in general with the strain of the chapter. At verse 6 commences another message, definitely dated in the reign of Josiah. 1. Wonderfully God's mercy toward His treacherous, ungrateful bride is so great that He still invites her to return, even though she has gone away and played the harlot with many lovers. The reference to the Hebrew law and the current sentiments of men is designed to set forth in a more striking light the greatness of God's forgiving love toward His apostate people. 4,5. The two questions respecting God's keeping anger forever, probably assume that God is so merciful that He may be expected to forgive, and not keep His anger forever against themselves, now that they are professing repentance. The object in this passage is to rebuke the people for relapsing so soon and so utterly after such fair professions of repentance, made withal in words so just and suitable. Hengstenberg renders the passage: "Hast thou not but lately called me, Friend of my youth art thou? Will He reserve His anger forever? Will He keep it to the end? Behold, so spakest thou, and soon thou didst evil; thou didst accomplish it." H. C. 4. My Father.** Thou art my Father, I will leave Thee to give me what is best. I am a very child, weak and ignorant; be Thou a Father, and a Guide, and a help to me. Thou art my Father; I will not fear to go to Thee, since Thou wilt not cast off Thy child. Thou art my Father, Thou hast therefore a right to correct me, and I will bear with patience that which must needs be for my good. Denton. God is as much the best as He is the greatest. The Father is the best of fathers. He is tenderness itself toward His children; and all His shaded measures with us are as truly conconceived in an exquisitely benignant spirit as are those other measures whose radiant faces pour delight on all eyes. Burr.—The child of God is pleased with everything that happens, because he knows it could not happen unless it had first pleased God, and that which pleases Him must be the best. He is assured that no new thing can befall him, and that he is in the hands of a Father who will prove him with no affliction that resignation cannot conquer or that death cannot cure. Colton. A call to the young. We need not hesitate so far to turn these words aside from their original meaning as to regard them as a Divine appeal to the young; especially if we understand that the prophet is here calling on Judah to return to the freshness of her "youth;" that "at this time" this hopeful reign of the good King Josiah, she should renew her covenant with Jehovah and the "love of her espousals" (chap. 2:2). In the days of youth the heart is most freely open to Divine influences, and it may be expected to respond readily to such an appeal as this. Note, 1. The deepest truth of religion is the Fatherhood of God. That He is the Father of our spirits is the basis of His claims upon us. The quality of our religious thought, the drift of our religious opinions, the tone of our religious life, depend very greatly on our faith in this truth. Fatherhood is our highest conception of God, and includes within it all aspects of His being, and all the relations He sustains toward us. This crowns them all, embraces all. We cannot rise above and beyond it. Our ideas are essentially defective if we fall short of it. Not that the actual human fatherhood worthily represents it; that, at its best, is but a marred and broken copy—a feeble, distant reflection—of the Divine. And yet the essential elements remain in spite of accidental faults. Power, wisdom, love, judicial authority, kingly rule, protective tenderness—these are the attributes of its ideal. And from the human, with all its imperfections and perversions, we rise to the Divine. 2. The apprehension of this sacred relationship is specially befitting the season of youth. What more natural than that young people should think of God as their Father; that this idea of Him should give shape and coloring to all their other religious ideas, and blend with all their views of life, and all their impressions of personal duty? P. C. pointed out as the justly provoking cause of the national ruin. Blayney. 6-11. The date was "in the days of Josiah," who set on foot a blessed work of reformation, in which he was hearty, but the people were not sincere in their compliance with it; to reprove them for that, and warn them of the consequences of their hypocrisy, is the scope of that which God here said to the prophet, and which He "delivered to them." The case of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah is here compared—the "ten tribes" that revolted from the throne of David and the Temple of Jerusalem, and the "two tribes" that adhered to both. The distinct history of those two kingdoms we have in the two books of the Kings, and here we have an abstract of both, as far as relates to this matter. H. The passage (verses 6-11) brings the case of Israel, the ten tribes, to the notice of Judah, that the latter may observe the sins of her sister and her consequent punishment, and learn hence her own greater sin and sorer doom. For in Judah God had made Himself far more fully known. Repeatedly had pious kings and faithful prophets called the people back to God, and repeatedly had they professed repentance and solemnly renewed their covenant with the Lord. But as often they had turned back again to their loved idols, worse than ever, so that treachery had signally marked their national character. This was their damning sin. They would not keep faith with their God. It is for the sake of making this strong feature of their guilt specially prominent, that this comparative view of the two nations is taken here. H. C. 7. Her treacherous sister Judah saw it.** The two kingdoms of Israel and Judah are described as sisters in iniquity. The same metaphor is applied to Samaria and Jerusalem, the two capitals (Ezek. 23:4, etc.). The word "treacherous" properly denotes a wife unfaithful to her husband. (See verse 20.) W. Lowth. 11. Israel and Judah are both shamefully wicked; and yet, of the two, Judah is worse than Israel: her treachery is so much more, as she had more favors from Me. Bp. H.—She sinned against greater convictions, and would not take warning by that desolation which God brought on the whole kingdom of Israel for their idolatries. (Cf. Ezek. 16:51.) W. Lowth. 12-19. Here is a great deal of Gospel in these verses, both that which was always Gospel—God's readiness to pardon sin and to rereceive and entertain returning repenting sinners—and those blessings which were in a special manner reserved for Gospel times, the forming and founding of the Gospel Church by bringing into it the "children of God" that were scattered around, the superseding of the ceremonial law and the uniting of Jews and Gentiles, typified by the uniting of Israel and Judah in their return out of captivity. H. 12-14. The address here is properly to Israel of the ten tribes, "backsliding" having been her distinctive epithet throughout this entire passage. (See verses 6, 8, 11, 12.) At the same time the spirit of the promise makes it equally good for the people of Judah, the Jews. Verse 18 declares that Judah shall come with Israel to the enjoyment of these great Gospel blessings. Israel is put foremost (as in this antithesis throughout) because her guilt had really been relatively less than that of Judah, and the Lord would fain move Judah to jealousy by the force of this contrast in both guilt and promised blessings. "I am married to you" means I cheerfully recognize my relation of husband to you; and, in the true spirit of this relation, I come now to solicit your returning love and the reconsecration of your heart to Me. 15. "Pastors according to Mine heart." Tracing this phrase historically to the circumstances out of which it grew, we come to the pious kings who led the people, not to idols, but to the true God. In its prophetic outlook into Gospel times, it must have its fulfilment mainly in Christian teachers of Gospel truth. David was the model shepherd of the Lord's flock—"after Mine own heart." (See 1 Sam. 13:14.) All faithful and true pastors are from the Lord. H. C.—Those are pastors after God's own heart who make it their business to feed the flock, not to "feed themselves and fleece the flocks," but to do all they can for the good of those that are under their charge; who "feed them with wisdom and understanding," wisely and understandingly. Those who are not only pastors, but teachers, must feed them with the Word of God, which is wisdom and understanding, which is able to make us wise to salvation. H. We believe in the Divine commission, "As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." We believe in the Divine assurance, "Lo, I am with you all the days to the end of the world." We believe in the Divine victory, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." And our faith is turned into supplication. Let us forget all but that charge, that presence, that redemption. There must be in the outward life checks, lonelinesses, defects. We cannot always keep at the level of our loftiest thoughts. Yet the words shall have fulfilment, "from strength to strength." "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who putteth his trust in Thee!" Westcott's Ordination Sermon to Bp. Lightfoot. Let us look into the New Testament and distinguish, if we can, what is called preaching there. And we find our apostle testifying, "Whom we preach, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." He does not say about whom, or the just account and formula of whom, but whom; the fact-form man, the life, and life history, and feeling, and sorrow, and death, and resurrection of the man. "Whom we preach"—that is, cry, proclaim, publish as good tidings, set forth as a fact-matter news or story—the word is not theologize, resolve, reduce, but preach. The souls to be gained are also to be presented "perfect in Christ Jesus"—that is, in the new possibilities and powers of grace embodied for them in the face and person, or personal life, of their incarnate Redeemer. Bushnell. Once the descriptive term for God's ministers was, "They wait at the altar;" now the descriptive term for God's ministers is, "They preach the Gospel." This is a contrast in which there is untold significance. Then, the Lord's priests sacrificed for His people; now His people are themselves a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ; and His ministers are helpers of their faith, exhorting and testifying of Christ, and of the true grace of God wherein we stand. Then, the words priest, altar and sacrifice had a primary and real significance; now, when used, they can only have a secondary meaning, sufficient, indeed, to show the reality of the blessings which they indicate, but in no way either interfering with or supplementing the office and work of Him who is our true Priest, Altar and Sacrifice. Then, they who ministered in holy things had to show the necessity of a work to be done; the work of reconciliation was committed to God's priests, that they might set it forth by types and symbols; but now, they who minister in holy things have to testify to the work of Christ already done; and, consequently, the apostle tells us, that to us, Christ's ambassadors, is committed the word of reconciliation. The work is in Christ's hands alone. It could be trusted in no other hands but His. It is honor enough for His ministers to be trusted with the word, the testimony concerning our Master and His finished work. Cadman. The effective preacher is a man of extensive knowledge, not a novice. He has clear and comprehensive views of truth. His mind is filled with its illuminations. He is a man of deep experience; his heart is pervaded with the spirit and power of truth. He is a man of benevolence; his soul is filled with intense desires to achieve, by his instrumentalities, those grand purposes of love for which the truth was given. He is a man of logic and of feeling; he can prove his points, and press them. He is a man of simplicity, who aims to be understood; a man of intention, who aims to be felt. He clothes his message in garments of light, imbues it with the energies of emotion, adjusts it to the sensibilities of the heart; points and pours it into the drowsy chambers of the conscience. He is a man of taste; he can soar if he pleases; write and speak with a winning beauty and a chastened elegance. He is a man of boldness, and is not afraid, in distinctness and strength, to utter the whole truth—all doctrine, all duty, whoever may hear or whoever may forbear. He is a man of independence, his rules are his own, gathered from all proper sources and incorporated with his habits of thought and feeling. He speaks in his own way, from the impulse of his own spirit, and in accordance with his own consciousness and good sense. He speaks not so much for beauty as for effect. The highest exertions of power are sometimes inconsistent with an exact and perfect finish. The sublime and resistless agents of nature are not accustomed to do things very precisely. The lightning does not stop to polish its shafts in its rending, scorching track. George Shepard. No doubt the preacher should be as susceptible as any man to the interest which poetical and historical associations give to the Scriptures; but then these should have for him "no glory at all by reason of the glory that excelleth." When his mind is smitten with the revelation of those thoughts and ways of God which are as much higher than man's thoughts and ways as the heavens are above the earth, then, as an instrument of the Spirit of grace, he is invested with his proper power. He will perceive, as by a sacred instinct, how an utterance on any given page is related to the truths which shine from all the pages. He will know that if he seizes that relation, he has the mind of God in the specific utterance. When he is borne along in the direction of that, he may frequently have to declare things which fail to be popular and for the moment pleasing; but he will not fall into the condemnation of having wasted the Sabbath hours, of having used the noble instrument of public discourse, with which he might have wielded over audiences the power of eternal truth, merely to freshen and set in some more striking combinations the fading things of time. W. S. Karr. We are commissioned to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not simply in the gushing, superficial fervor of repeating His name and picturing His cross. Paul was determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified; but Paul's name is linked with fourteen doctrinal epistles, setting forth the logical principles of an intellectual Christianity. The cross of Calvary is the focus, but the rays of truth are radiated on every side. Our work is declarative. The range of need is broad; the range of truth is broad, and while Christ is the centre and Calvary is the core, yet we are to gather everywhere from the rich fields of truth that God has opened up, producing things new and old, and bring them to bear upon the hearts and lives of men, enriching their thoughts, ennobling their conditions, exalting their ideals and bringing them into harmony with the everlasting Father. H. C. Minton. Everything costs which has any real worth; costs in proportion to its worth, and costs all it is worth. In scholarship only an alert and athletic discipline tells. Every faculty must be roused, informed and driven to do its best. How one man surpasses another is not always easily explained. Brains of course differ, both in volume and especially in fibre. Temperaments differ. Opportunities differ. But the final strategic secret is in the will. The best scholarship, other things being equal, waits always upon the most inflamed and steady purpose. In ancient Christian art Matthew was the man, Mark the lion, Luke the ox, and John the eagle. The symbolism is most suggestive. Christian scholarship must emulate them all. Insight, courage, endurance, aspiration—these are the four evangelists of a successful ministry. Omniscience has a joy of its own. But for the finite mind there can be no greater benediction than that of the endless search. R. D. Hitchcock. The true preacher will not offer to God of that which costs him nothing, but takes pains beforehand with his sermons. Having brought his sermon into his head, he labors to bring it into his heart before he preaches it to his people; and surely that preaching which comes from the soul most works on the soul. The places of Scripture he quotes are pregnant and pertinent. The similes and illustrations are always familiar, but never contemptible. In his opinion reasons are the pillars of the fabric of a sermon, but similitudes are the windows which give the best light. He provideth not only wholesome but plentiful food for his hearers. He makes not that wearisome which should be ever welcome; wherefore his sermons are of ordinary length, except on an extraordinary occasion. He counts the success of his ministry the greatest preferment. Fuller. The single eye, the pure intention, the consideration of God's will, the love of His commandments, zeal for His glory, ardor in His service, affection toward His creatures, these are the grand and essential motives which God looks for in His ministers. Bp. Jebb.—An illustration and example of the spirit indicated, Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, of New York, near the end wrote thus to one of his own generation: "You and I are very near the end of our course. Could any angel have coveted a greater calling than that in which we have spent our days? Preaching to poor, perishing men the unsearchable riches of Christ! Blessed be God that this—not heaping up treasure on earth, not making ourselves a name among scholars, and the worldly wise, and great politicians, and place seekers—has been our occupation. I am constantly lamenting over my shortcomings, my little profiting by all my advantages and opportunities of serving my Lord, and my countless infirmities and sins; but notwithstanding all my drawbacks, I cannot but call on my soul and all that is within me to bless the Lord that I have been, here on earth, not a banker, or lawyer, or statesman, or prince; but a preacher of the everlasting Gospel. And I am sure that in this you are like me; and how should we rejoice together in the wonderful grace of God toward us, in this respect, if we could talk with each other of the ministry we have almost completed! Farewell! In the bonds of the everlasting covenant." Thomas H. Skinner. 16. The scope of the verse is that the ark, and much more surely all else with it belonging to the external forms and ceremonies of Judaism, will pass away, being superseded by what is altogether better and more glorious. H. C.—The ark of the covenant was the visible seat of God's residence among His people; it was therefore the object of their boast; but after the destruction of the first Temple, they had it no more. But to compensate this loss, they are told in the next verse that "Jerusalem should be called the throne of the Lord," to which not the Jews only, but "all the nations should be gathered." By Jerusalem is meant the Christian Church. (See Gal. 4 : 26 ; Rev. 21 : 2, 3.) The greater privileges of this latter would supersede all boast on account of those which had at any time belonged to the Jewish Church. Blayney.—Neither shall it come to mind ; neither shall they remember it. Meaning, The Jews shall then be convinced that the ark and other parts of the Mosaical dispensation are abrogated by Christ and His Gospel, which they will then embrace. Wells. 18. The form of this language has led many to expect a literal restoration (yet future) of both Judah and Israel (the ten tribes) to their ancient land. Let it suffice to remark here, that while the ancient economy stood, demanding the concentration of the people within and around Jerusalem, and withstanding their diffusion among the nations of the earth, such a return would be a blessing ; that the Jews did in this manner return under Zerubbabel and with Ezra and Nehemiah ; that the use of such phraseology is accounted for by existing facts and the whole genius of that system ; but that when we pass over into the Christian age, all the great facts of the case are changed. Israel and Judah cannot return thither to set up Judaism again, as this very passage shows, and as the New Testament most abundantly proves ; that the genius of the Christian system demands diffusion and resists concentration—thus precisely reversing the genius, the aim and the work of the ancient dispensation ; and, finally, that Paul (Rom. 11), looking forward to the future of his countrymen under the triumphant sway of the Gospel in the latter days, has not a hint about their returning to their own land, but finds all these promises fulfilled in their being engrafted into God's Church again, and brought meekly and humbly to love and serve the living Saviour. Hence, for these main reasons, I cannot interpret this promise as involving the yet future restoration of Israel and Judah to their own land, but find in it the far higher and richer blessing that Paul found in it—their reception again into the bosom of the Christian Church, with a power upon Zion as that of life from the dead, that “so all Israel may be saved,” since “there shall come out of Zion a Deliverer, who shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob” (Rom. 11 : 15, 25, 26). 19. After such exceeding great and precious promises, nothing could be more appropriate than to show how the people could avail themselves of these blessings ; what they must be and must do to ensure them. Hence the remaining verses of this chapter bear directly to this point. Israel and Judah were united in verse 18, and thenceforward through the chapter are one, under the common name Israel (verses 20, 21, 23), and are spoken of as both “treacherous” (verse 20) and “backsliding” (verse 22). The Lord raises the question : “How shall I put thee among the children?” This question the Lord Himself answers : “Thou shalt call Me, My Father, and shalt not turn away from Me.” Truly this is the way : To return to God with humble faith in His parental love and with the filial spirit of a confiding child, and then to prove faithful evermore. These are the conditions of obtaining so great blessings. H. C. He does Himself return answer to this question : “But I said, Thou shalt call Me, My Father.” God does Himself answer all the objections that are taken from our unworthiness, or they would never be got over. 1. That He may put returning penitents “among the children,” He will give them the “Spirit of adoption,” teaching them “to cry, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4 : 6). “Thou shalt call Me, My Father ; thou shalt return to Me, and resign thyself to Me as a Father, and that shall recommend thee to My favor.” 2. That He may “give them the pleasant land,” He will “put His fear in their hearts,” that they may never “turn from Him,” but may persevere to the end. H. The conditions of adoption into the Christian Church, and of enjoying the privileges of the Gospel covenant, are expressly stated by Christ and His apostles to be the same as are here prescribed—viz., the profession of a true faith in God and uniform obedience for the time to come. “Thou shalt call Me, My Father ; and shalt not turn away from Me.” Blayney. It is not mere condescension to the infirmity of man when God employs human language or human forms of speech to make His character known to us. There is just ground for it, in the nature of the case. It is not mere metaphor. It is in part literal and substantial truth. When He terms Himself our Father in heaven, it is not a mere figurative appellation. He is so in the strictest and fullest sense of the word. This word conveys an impressive and most consoling idea of what is truly the fact. Instead of its being an indication of the weakness of human speech, it is doubtful whether the dialect of angels could supply a better. B. B. Edwards.—In calling Himself our Father, God recalls to our mind the benefits of our creation, our preservation and redemption ; the blessing of adoption and of that sanctification which He has given to His children. Denton. Adoption is the act of God, and not of faith ; it is God that says, "How shall I put them among the children?" and again, "I will be their Father, and they shall be My sons and daughters." It is the work and business of faith to receive the blessing of adoption, which it could not do unless it had been previously provided in the mind and by the will of God, and in the covenant of His grace; for the reception of which Christ has made way by His redemption, one end of which is "that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. 4:5) —that is, by faith; for God has appointed faith to be the general receiver of Christ, and of all the blessings of Grace through Him, and this among the rest; and to as many as receive Christ, He gives a power, authority, dignity and privilege to become the sons of God openly —that is, to claim this as their privilege and dignity; which claim is made by faith, but not the thing itself claimed; even to them that believe on His name, and who are described as regenerate persons, which is an evidence of their sonship, though not the thing itself; "who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12, 13). John Gill. Adoption is evidenced by the renunciation of all former dependencies. When a child is adopted he relinquishes the object of his past confidence and submits himself to the will and pleasure of the adopter; so they who are brought into the family of God will evidence it by giving up every other object, so far as it interferes with the will and glory of their heavenly Father. "Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?" (Hos. 14:8.) "Other lords have had dominion over us; but by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name" (Isa. 26:13). Anon. Readoption is the guarantee of all highest blessings. It is only children of God who are heirs of God; if, then, we would enjoy the privileges and blessings of His house, we must be reinstated in that which we have lost. But this is only possible on repentance and belief. We are assured here and elsewhere that the sinner can regain this title and relation without lessening of the dignity, privilege and affection. When once this has taken place there is no bar to the bestowal of God's richest benediction. As His children, as those who are actuated by His love and governed by His Spirit, there is ample security that His blessings shall not be abused. A holy confidence and communion are established, and the true end of being is once more secured. P. C. Amid all your conscious unworthiness, reremember, you are His children. The soiled garments of earth which you may carry to the very portals of glory cannot alter a Father's feelings toward you, or lead Him to belie or forego His promises. If there be joy in heaven (and that joy deepest in the Father's heart) over the sinner in the hour of his repentance; what will be that joy in the hour of his glorification, when, stripped of his travel-worn, sin-stained raiment, all his truant wanderings, estrangements and backslidings at an end, he enters the threshold of the paternal home! Macduff.—Every time we are tempted to commit some sin, if we would stop and think, "I am now a child of God; shall a child of God, destined to wear Christ's image, stoop to be untrue or dishonest or impure or to cherish wrath or bitterness?" would we not turn away from the temptation? Could we sin against God with the consciousness of our high calling in our heart? J. R. M. 21-23. God hears their voice of penitence and sees their tears. They mourn on the high hills, where their great sins of idol worship have been committed, and He kindly invites their return, with the promise to heal their backslidings. They hear and respond, "Yea, Lord, with joy we come!" With glad hearts they now declare, Thou alone art the Lord our God! Our salvation is in Thee! H. C. 22. The invitation God gives them to return to Him: "Return, ye backsliding children." He calls them "children," in tenderness and compassion to them; foolish and froward as children, yet "His sons;" whom though He corrects He will not disinherit; for yet they are "children." H.—Though backslidden, yet He owns us as children. O Father, Thy love ever lives, though folly is in our ways. He calls in love, Return. He promises, "I will heal your backslidings;" I will freely and fully pardon them, though ever so numerous, heinous or aggravating, as though they had never been committed. W. Mason. God calls on His people to return to Him. Not simple reformation of morals, but the restoration of personal relations with God as the Father of His people is desired. They are apostate children—i.e., they are far from God, though they were once near to Him, and they are still His children. As sinners, men have all lost a first estate of innocence, but have not lost and can never lose their filial relationship to God. Hence the greatness of their guilt and the hope of their restoration. God invites and does not drive; He here exchanges threats for promises. God will heal, not simply receive His children. God alone can heal their apostasies. Man repents of sin, but God cures it. It is our part to turn from the evil, God's to destroy that evil. Sin is washed out, not by the tears of penitence, but by the blood of Christ. P. C. 24,25. Verily the people have come to see their sins in their true light, as both most disgraceful and most ruinous. This course of thought really includes the first two verses of the next chapter, and may best be considered as addressed to the whole ancient Israel, without distinction between Israel and Judah. There is a beautiful pertinence in this sequel to those great promises in verses 14-18. H. C. Chap. 4. The first two verses of this chapter ought not to have been separated from the foregoing; being spoken in reply to the confession of the people of Israel. Blayney.—This chapter is connected closely with the preceding, the first two verses, like the preceding context (3 : 19-25), addressing Israel as a whole, without distinguishing Judah from the other tribes; while from verse 3 onward the prophet specially addresses Judah and Jerusalem, solemnly threatening the invasion by the terrible Chaldeans, and blending with this threatening repeated admonitions to deep searchings of heart and radical repentance. 1,2. When Israel shall reverence her own God heartily and truly, other nations will be induced to believe in Him, and to count it their blessedness and their glory to have Him their God. Truly this is a word for God's people in every age, testifying that when they walk closely and humbly with God, their example and influence will be a power through God to the salvation of the wicked round about them. 3. Here the Lord turns His address from Israel in general to Judah and Jerusalem in particular. "Fallow ground" is that which requires ploughing, and is set apart to be ploughed, and not here (as in our modern phrase), what has been ploughed. The exhortation, "Prepare your ground for seed sowing by putting in the plough and rooting out the thorns," means, in the moral sense, exterminate the evils of your hearts; break off your evil practices; make a thorough, radical change in your heart and life. H. C.—An unconvinced, unhumbled heart is like fallow ground, ground untilled, unoccupied. It is ground capable of improvement; it is our ground, let out to us, and we must be accountable for it; but it is fallow; it is unfenced, and lies common, it is unfruitful, and of no advantage to the owner, and (which is principally intended) it is overgrown with thorns and weeds, which are the natural product of the corrupt heart, if it be not renewed with grace. Rain and sunshine are lost upon it (Heb. 6 : 7, 8). H. The life of every man is a process of spiritual husbandry. There is a true analogy between the soul of a man and the field in which a farmer sows his seed. In each case there are latent productive elements that may be turned either to good or evil according to the conditions of their development—capacities of indefinite improvement or of indefinite deterioration, of boundless fruitfulness or of boundless waste. The prolific virtue of the soil will nourish alike the germs of precious corn or of noisome weeds; and, whichever it be, the heavens above, by all the influences they shed down upon it, will promote the process. Thus will the faculties of our spiritual nature foster either the seeds of Divine excellence or of satanic corruption, and then all the laws to which our nature is subject, and all the associations of our life, will help to elaborate the issue, until we reap either a glad harvest of fruits that will endure forever, or one of shame and sorrow—thorns and weeds and briars fit only for the flames. P. C. Fallow ground may not be utterly fruitless. Even the bramble bears its wholesome fruit, and good thoughts and good deeds spring up in the midst of heathen nations and irreligious people. God's Spirit has not wholly deserted any. But such fruit is poor compared with the fruit of cultivation, and the crop of it is thin. The good which still pertains to a neglected soul is imperfect, and small in the extreme compared with the good which would spring up in that soul under proper spiritual influences. The highest thought, the purest morality, the noblest effort, the largest charity, are only to be found where the spiritual life is cultivated by worship, instruction and discipline. P. C. Hence we see that this admonition, whatever its first aspect of obscurity, is really a most important one for all of us. The exhortation is to nothing less than thoroughness in spiritual culture. Thoroughness in the cultivation of the heart, as a soil wherein the seeds of Divine truth are sown, pays in the highest sense of the word. The word through Jeremiah here is but the germ from which our Lord expounded His parable of the four kinds of soil. There is laid on each one of us a heavy burden—the stewardship of a human heart. And yet it is a precious and honorable burden. Far beyond the ripest, sweetest and most copious fruits of the soil beneath our feet, is the fruit that may come from within us. But the culture must be thorough. True, that means toil, patience, watchfulness, discrimination; but what great work was ever done without them? P. C. 3:6 MOREOVER the LORD said unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. And I said after she had done all these things, She will return unto me; but she returned not: and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw, when, for this very cause that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorcement, yet treacherous Judah her sister feared not: but she also went and played the harlot. And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not returned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD. And the LORD said unto me, Backsliding Israel hath shewn herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; I will not look in anger upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD. Return, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am a husband unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: and I will give you shepherds according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD; neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more. At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance unto your fathers. But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of the nations? and I said, Ye shall call me My father; and shall not turn away from following me. Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD. A voice is heard upon the bare heights, the weeping and the supplications of the children of Israel; for that they have perverted their way, they have forgotten the LORD their God. Return, ye backsliding children, I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we are come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God. Truly in vain is the help that is looked for from the hills, the tumult on the mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel. But the shameful thing hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day: and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God. 4:1 If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, unto me shalt thou return: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not be removed; and thou shalt swear, As the LORD liveth, in truth, in judgement, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory. For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury go forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land: cry aloud and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fenced cities. Set up a standard toward Zion: flee for safety, stay not; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction. A lion is gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he is on his way, he is gone forth from his place; to make thy land desolate, that thy cities be laid waste, 8 without inhabitant. For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce 9 anger of the LORD is not turned back from us. And it shall come to pass at that day, saith the LORD, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the 10 priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder. Then said I, Ah, Lord God! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; 11 whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul. At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my 12 people, not to fan, nor to cleanse; a full wind from these shall come for me: now will I 13 also utter judgements against them. Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots 14 shall be as the whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled. O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How 15 long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee? For a voice declareth from Dan, and 16 publisheth evil from the hills of Ephraim: make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against 17 the cities of Judah. As keepers of a field are they against her round about; because she 18 hath been rebellious against me, saith the LORD. Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reacheth unto thine heart. 19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me: I cannot hold my peace; because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the 20 alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled; sud- 21 denly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard, 22 and hear the sound of the trumpet? For my people is foolish, they know me not; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. 23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no 24 light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved to and fro. 25, 26 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at 27 the presence of the LORD, and before his fierce anger. For thus saith the LORD, The whole 28 land shall be a desolation; yet will I not make a full end. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have 29 not repented, neither will I turn back from it. The whole city fleeth for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they go into the thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city 30 is forsaken, and not a man dwelleth therein. And thou, when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with scarlet, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou enlargest thine eyes with paint, in vain dost thou make thyself 31 fair; thy lovers despise thee, they seek thy life. For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that gaspeth for breath, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul fainteth before the murderers. # 3:6. The Lord said also unto me. Here begins an entire new section or distinct prophecy, which is continued to the end of the sixth chapter. This prophecy consists of two distinct parts. The first part contains a complaint against Judah, for having exceeded the guilt of her sister Israel, whom God had already cast off for her idolatrous apostasy (verses 6-12). The prophet is hereupon sent to announce to Israel the promise of pardon upon her repentance, and the hopes of a glorious restoration in aftertimes, which are plainly marked out to be the times of the Gospel, when the Gentiles themselves were to become a part of the Church (verses 12-21). The children of Israel, confessing and bewailing their sins, have the same comfortable assurances as before repeated to them (verse 22; chap. 4:2). In the second part, which begins chap. 4:3, and is prefaced with an address to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, exhorting them to prevent the Divine judgments by a timely repentance, the Babylonian invasion is clearly and fully foretold, with all the miseries which would attend it; and the universal and incorrigible depravity of the people is represented at large, and 4. The moral significance of circumcision is putting away everything impure and unclean. To this the Lord exhorts the people; else will His fury break forth like fire. H. C.—Even in the Pentateuch this initiatory rite of the covenant was shown to point to another circumcision, that of the lips and the heart, which in the future would become a great spiritual reality to all men. It is in this view of circumcision that Moses speaks of himself as of “uncircumcised lips”—that is, as unprepared for great spiritual work, while in Lev. 26:41 we read of “uncircumcised hearts,” and in Deuteronomy the command to circumcise the heart is explained as equivalent to being “no more stiff-necked” (10:16). Quite in accordance with this view, Jeremiah expresses his call to repentance in the words before us. And that this was intended to point to something very real appears from the circumstance that it forms the great Divine promise of the latter days: “Jehovah thy God will circumcise thine heart . . . to love Jehovah thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul” (De. 30:6). Circumcision then was not a merely outward rite, but symbolic of a spiritual reality; and it pointed beyond itself to the time of its spiritual accomplishment. Accordingly we find that in the prophetic writings it is associated with the glory of the latter days. Thus Isaiah calls on the holy city to awake and put on her beautiful garments, for that henceforth the uncircumcised and the unclean would no more enter her gates. And that the outward rite could not have been referred to appears from this, that Jeremiah (9:26) foretells that the days would come when Jehovah would equally punish the circumcised with the uncircumcised, for that while the Gentiles were uncircumcised, “all the house of Israel were uncircumcised in the heart.” A. E. 5,6. These verses solemnly announce the near impending invasion by the Chaldeans. The people are summoned to assemble for protection in their strongly fortified cities, and especially in Jerusalem. This is the sense of “setting up a standard toward Zion,” as a rallying point toward which the people should flee for safety. The word rendered “retire” (verse 6) means “hasten with your effects;” take what you value most, and fly in haste. “Evil from the north,” in the usage of Jeremiah, means the Chaldean armies. (See 1:14, 15 and 24:9.) H. C. 6. From the north. Babylonia, Chaldea, Assyria and Media are constantly represented in Scripture as being to the north of Judea. Probably the prophets speak of the kings of Babylonia and Chaldea not so much with a view to their geographical situation, which is rather to the east of Palestine, as to the course which they took in their expeditions against Judea. The deserts of Arabia being not practicable for an army, they commonly crossed the Euphrates at Tiphsah, or Thapsacus, and approached Judea on the north side, by way of Damascus and Syria. Calmet. 7. The lion is come up. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, whose monarchy is represented by a lion. He is called here “the destroyer of the Gentiles,” or rather nations; Judea and all the neighboring countries being given up into his hands by God’s decree. W. Lowth. 10. The next preceding verse refers to ungodly priests and false prophets. Through them the people had been greatly deceived, and the Lord had, in a sense, permitted these wicked agencies and their sad results. We need not assume that the prophet finds fault with God for what He had done. H. C.—The prophet takes care to remove all pretence of charging God by throwing the blame upon the people themselves. (See verse 18.) In one place “the sword” is said to “reach unto the soul;” in the other, the reason is assigned, because their “wickedness” had reached thither before. The people had been desperately wicked; would accept of no sober counsel nor bear any just reproof; they loved “smooth things;” they delighted in flattery and lies; they “walked after the imagination of their own hearts” (chap. 23:17); and therefore God gave them up to strong delusions, and suffered them to be grossly imposed on by lying prophets of their own choosing. In Scripture phrase, God is frequently said to do what He permits to be done, because all events are in His disposal and wait His pleasure. The device may be man’s; but God directs it to better purposes than man could think of; and so, by taking the thing into His own hands, and governing the issue of it, He makes it, in a certain sense, His own. Waterland. Our Lord refers more often than to any other Old Testament Scripture to that word of Isaiah’s which tells of the Divine will, that “seeing, they [his enemies] may see and not perceive, and hearing, they may hear and not understand.” Men who will not hear come at length to find they cannot. So with Judah and Jerusalem; they were at this time "given up to a strong delusion, that they should believe the lie"—that peace could be their lot in spite of what they were. We speak of Gospel-hardened men, and, alas! we too often see such. And this is in keeping with God's law of habit—a law most beneficent to those who obey Him, but terrible in its effects on the disobedient. For separate actions crystallize into habits, whereby such actions, no matter what their character, become easy to us, and at last can be performed without any effort of our will. So that separate acts of obedience to God will at length become a blessed and holy habit of obedience, and separate acts of sin repeated again and again will become a direful habit of sin, from which we cannot break away. And because all this is in accordance with a Divine law, therefore God is said to harden men's hearts, to hinder their understanding of His word, to give them over to strong delusions and, as here, to "deceive the people." P. C. 13. These figures are plain; they are also magnificent and appalling. In numbers that appeared as a cloud—His chariots dashing like the whirlwind—His horses swifter than the eagle; the one thought that sinks into the heart is, We are lost! Alas! the nation is gone; wasted, sacked, spoiled! 14. "O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee?" Reverting suddenly to their only source of hope and help—the thorough repentance of the people, the putting away of all their heart sins—he pertinently appends to his description of coming ruin this call to moral cleansing as their only salvation. "How long shall vain thoughts, deceitful, delusive hopes, find a quiet lodging-place in your souls? Will you not open your eyes to your peril, and read here God's testimony against your sin and guilt?" H. C.—The root of their corruption; the evil thoughts that lodged within them and defiled their hearts, from which they must wash their hearts. Thoughts of iniquity or mischief, these are the evil thoughts of the evil heart, from which all other wickedness is produced (Matt. 15:19). These are our own, and they are most dangerous when they lodge within us, when they are admitted and entertained as guests and are suffered to continue." H. The sins and miseries of human history are the plentiful harvest of a single evil thought lodged in the mind of Eve. No foundation of virtue so solid evil thoughts will not undermine; no defence so impregnable they will not overthrow; no piety so sound they will not corrupt and ruin. We wonder as we read of crimes perpetrated by reputable persons, whose previous lives contradict them; but we should cease to wonder if we could see how evil thoughts have eaten out the heart, leaving nothing but the shell. Chapman.—Use not your thoughts to take their liberty and be ungoverned; for use will make them headstrong and not regard the voice of reason; and it will make reason careless and remiss. Use and custom have great power on our minds; where we use to go, our path is plain; but where there is no use, there is no way. Where the water useth to run there is a channel. Baxter. The heart is determined by the thoughts; as the thoughts, so the character; the thoughts form the passions, the passions form the actions, the actions form the man. The thoughts are marked with an infinity of views and complexions, but it depends upon ourselves what thoughts we choose. The government of the thoughts is the government of the inward regions. A prince may possess the largest dominions and yet be the victim of his thoughts. R. Hall. Thoughts are the expositors of the real condition of the heart, embodying those habits and displaying those passions which prudence or want of opportunity restrain from breaking forth into spoken or acted sin. They are a truer picture of ourselves than are our lives; because we have neither the same temptation nor power to gloss them over with a fair appearance. The Christian, therefore, should have the mastery of his thoughts, as well as of his appetites, and be able to turn them to the service of God. Bp. Jackson. The first beginning and hatching of any sin is first in the thoughts of the heart; and if kings will have their servants in their accounts answer even for pence, why may not God call us to a reckoning even for our smallest debts? And if men punish words and deeds, because they see and know them, why then should not God punish our thoughts, which He knows far better than any man can do our outward actions? We must therefore make conscience of the idle rovings of our brains; our very thoughts and imaginations must stoop and do homage to God, who hath required of us to be loved with all our thoughts, and biddeth us tremble even at the very first rising of evil motions in our hearts, and sin not. Dyke, 1642. Thoughts are the mutineers in the soul, which set open the gates for Satan; he has held a secret intelligence with them, so far as he knows them, ever since the fall; and they are his spies to assist him in the execution of his devices. They prepare the tinder, and the next fiery dart sets all on a flame. Can we cherish these, if we consider that Christ died for them? He shed His blood for that which put the world out of order, which was accomplished by the sinful imagination of the first man, and continued by evil imaginations. He died to restore God to His right and man to his happiness; neither of which can be perfectly attained till those be thrown out of the possession of the heart. Charnock. Unhallowed ambition may be replaced by the deepest humility. But unclean thoughts once harbored never leave the soul empty, and swept, and garnished. There is always a taint. Anon.—A man may commit the same sin a thousand times by renewing the pleasures of it in his thoughts. Though the act be past, yet as often as the mind runs over the passages and circumstances of the same sin, with the same delight, so often the soul is polluted with a new stain and laden with more guiltiness. Anon. "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts." The heart—the heart—there is the evil! The imagination, which was given to spiritualize the senses, is often turned into a means of sensualizing the spirit. Beware of revery, and indulgence in forbidden images, unless you would introduce into your bosom a serpent, which will creep, and crawl, and leave the venom of its windings in your heart. And now what is the remedy for this? How shall we avoid evil thoughts? First, by the fear of God—"Our God is a consuming fire." Compare with this, "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." An awful thought! a living God, infinitely pure, is conscious of your contaminated thoughts! So the only true courage sometimes comes from fear. We cannot do without awe; there is no depth of character without it. Tender motives are not enough to restrain from sin; yet neither is awe enough. Love and hope will keep us strong against passion, as they kept our Saviour strong in suffering, "who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame." Secondly, by the promises of God. Think of what you are—a child of God, an heir of heaven. Realize the grandeur of saintliness, and you will shrink from degrading your soul and debasing your spirit. F. W. Robertson. Though we cannot keep evil thoughts from knocking at the door of our hearts, nor from entering in sometimes, yet we may forbear bidding them welcome or giving them entertainment. "How long shall evil thoughts lodge within thee?" It is bad to let them sit down with us, though but for an hour, but it is worse to let them lie or lodge with us. Swin-nock.—Though we cannot hinder them from haunting us, yet we may from lodging in us. The very sparkling of an abominable motion in our hearts is as little to be looked upon as the color of wine in a glass by a man inclined to drunkenness. Quench them instantly, as you would do a spark of fire in a heap of straw. We must not treat with them. Paul's resolve is a good pattern, not to confer with flesh and blood. We do not debate whether we should shake a viper off our hands. Charnock. Every man is responsible for the tenor of his thoughts. If not, there could be no room in this matter for remonstrance or appeal. The law of the association of ideas may be such that it is as impossible to prevent some particular thought from recurring to the mind as to stay the tide of the ocean; but it is certainly possible for us to regulate our habitual mental conditions. It is given to us by watchful, prayerful self-discipline, especially by occupying the mind with higher and nobler things, to secure that the main drift of our thinking shall be in the right direction. We can choose our own fields of daily contemplation. Those thoughts will "lodge" in us which we most encourage and cherish, and for this we are accountable. It is impossible to measure the corrupting power of such thoughts. No evil imagination or purpose can enter the mind, and be allowed for a moment to dwell there, without leaving some moral stain behind it. Accustom yourself to any extent to the play of such influences, your whole being becomes contaminated by them, and "The baseness of their nature Shall have power to drag you down." Our minds cannot be in frequent contact with mean or grovelling objects of contemplation without finding that they poison all the streams of moral life within us. W. The world must be very near us when the worldly thought is ever with us. Our best treasure must assuredly be there, else our heart and thought of our heart would not be always there. Thoughts that are always running on this world, on its hopes and fears, its gains and losses, its victories and defeats, are vain thoughts; and he that is wise will see betimes the peril and the danger with which they threaten the whole life of his soul, and will watch against them, as knowing that we may perish through things lawful as surely as through things unlawful. Trench. 15-17. Dan lay on the northern border of Palestine, so that the first tidings of the Chaldean irruption from the north would come from that quarter. So also Mount Ephraim lay north from Jerusalem. The "watchers that come from a far country" are besiegers who come to invest the city, and shut the people in on every side, and so watch over them to prevent their escape. Verse 17 plainly refers to their besieging the city, and gives the reason—the rebellion of Judah against her God. H. C. 18. The cause is clear. "Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee." It is from no decree of reprobation, from no predestination to sin, but from the inevitable action of the law of God which ordains that "ways" and "doings" such as Judah's were shall at length so utterly deceive those who are guilty of them that the most glaring falsehood is not too glaring for them to believe. P. C. 19. The cause of this great sorrow is the trumpet-blast for war—the Chaldean armies coming to desolate the land. 21,22. The question "how long" involves the question "why." Why does this fearful calamity come at all on this goodly land? Verse 22 meets this question as from the mouth of the Lord Himself, who replies: "My people are wholly given up to the folly of sin and rebellion. They act as if they had never known Me. They are cunning and intelligent in doing evil, but have no wisdom, no sense to do good. Sin has terribly perverted their intellectual powers." This is the common law of sinning in its influence on the mind; it blinds the intellect, and, as to all that is morally good, seems to rob it of reason and good sense, and subject it to the supreme dominion of folly. This moral state of the people is the reason why such fearful calamities fall on the whole land. Nothing can be more important than to announce this to the people again and again, for all hope of saving the nation lies in their heeding it. H. C. 23-26. The images under which the prophet represents the approaching desolation as foreseen by him present a most striking picture of a ruined country. The earth is brought back to its primitive state of chaos and confusion; the cheerful light of the heavens is withdrawn, and succeeded by a dismal gloom; the mounmountains tremble and the hills shake under dreadful apprehensions of the Almighty's displeasure; a frightful solitude reigns all around; not a vestige is to be seen of any of the human race; even the birds themselves have deserted the fields, unable to find any longer in them their usual food. The face of the country, in the once most fertile parts of it, now overgrown with briars and thorns, assumes the dreary wildness of the desert. The cities and villages are either thrown down and demolished by the hand of the enemy, or crumble into ruins, of their own accord, for want of being inhabited. Blayney. 27. "Yet will I not make a full end." God's reserve of mercy. This Divine resolve regarding the reserved remnant of the people of Judah and Jerusalem, who should be excepted from the desolation that was coming, is declared several times. Here in the text, then again in chap. 5:10; 30:11, and once again in chap. 46:28. And these are but the echo of what God said to Israel long ages before in the desert of Sinai, as we read in Lev. 26:44. And in other parts of Jeremiah's prophecies, and in the writings of all the prophets, this Divine resolve to mercifully reserve from destruction a portion of Israel is more or less plainly declared. Thus, then, God does not conceal that the end He makes will not be a full end. And there were many reasons why this fact should be declared. It would show that God was mindful of His covenant with their fathers; that their "unfaithfulness could not make the faithfulness of God of none effect." The scoff of the unbeliever, the dismay of the true-hearted, would be alike prevented, for, by God's not making a full end, the way was yet plain for the accomplishment of all that He had spoken. Moreover, such declaration would sustain the faith of the faithful. They would see how they were not forgotten, that God's watchful care was over them, and that amid the coming desolations He would find means to deliver those who put their trust in Him. And the keeping open of this door of hope was calculated to persuade some to enter through that door, and so be saved. But while the oft-repeated words of the text refer mainly to Judah and Jerusalem, they really declare a principle of the Divine procedure, a continual law of His government and rule. God's way is, when making an end, not to make a full end. He has ever a reserve of mercy. P. C. 28. God's purpose of delivering up the Jews into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar was irreversible upon the supposition that the greatest part of them would continue impenitent, which He likewise foresaw. (See verse 22 and chaps. 7 : 16, 27, 28 ; 13 : 14 ; 14 : 11, 12 ; 25 : 9-11.) Though elsewhere upon their repentance, to which God frequently exhorted them by His prophets (see chap. 25 : 4, 5), He promises the removal of His judgments. W. Lowth. 30. "When this spoiling shall become a reality, what wilt thou do?" No matter how delicately clad or gayly ornamented thou mayest be, thy lovers, those heathen nations from whom thou hast sought their idol gods, or (according to the figure of the prophets) with whom thou hast played the harlot, will despise thee and will seek thy very life! How little will it avail thee then to have sought them as thy lovers when they shall have become thy murderers! So in every sinner's case there will come an hour of doom in which his sins will become his tormentors, and Satan, to whom he has sold himself to do his bidding, will drop his mask and appear plainly the sinner's real and worst enemy! 31. These are the customary Hebrew figures to express extreme sorrow, affliction and agony. The whole people are thought of as a desolate female, the daughter of Zion, bewailing her sad lot, spreading forth her hands as if imploring help, and crying, "Woe is me now! my soul is wearied because of murderers!" Armed men are drinking the blood of all my sons and daughters! Thus closes this vivid portrayal of the desolations which were near to come on Judah and Jerusalem from the terrible Chaldean armies, unless the people should at once turn to God in penitence and find mercy. H. C. 5 : 1 RUN ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that doeth justly, that seeketh truth; and I will pardon her. And though they say, As the LORD liveth, surely they swear falsely. O LORD, do not thine eyes look upon truth? thou hast stricken them, but they were not grieved, thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. Then I said, Surely these are poor: they are foolish; for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgement of their God. I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they know the way of the LORD, and the judgement of their God. But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bands. Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities, every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased. How can I pardon thee? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the harlots' houses. They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour's wife. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her branches: for they are not the LORD's. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith the LORD. They have denied the LORD, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine: and the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them. Wherefore thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them. Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. Their quiver is an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they 18 shall beat down thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustest, with the sword. But even in those 19 days, saith the LORD, I will not make a full end with you. And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD our God done all these things unto us? then shalt thou say unto them, Like as ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours. 20,21. Declare ye this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying, Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have 22 ears, and hear not: Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it? and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though 23 they roar, yet can they not pass over it. But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious 24 heart; they are revolted and gone. Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; that reserveth 25 unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Your iniquities have turned away these things, 26 and your sins have withholden good from you. For among my people are found wicked 27 men: they watch, as fowlers lie in wait; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. 28. They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness: they plead not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they should prosper; and the right of the needy 29 do they not judge. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 30,31. A wonderful and horrible thing is come to pass in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof? 6:1 Flee for safety, ye children of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth-haccherem: for evil looketh forth from the 2 north, and a great destruction. The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will I 3 cut off. Shepherds with their flocks shall come unto her; they shall pitch their tents against 4 her round about; they shall feed every one in his place. Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day declineth, for the shadows of the even- 5 ing are stretched out. Arise, and let us go up by night, and let us destroy her palaces. 6. For thus hath the LORD of hosts said, Hew ye down trees, and cast up a mount against Jerusa- 7 lem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her. As a well casteth forth her waters, so she casteth forth her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in 8 her; before me continually is sickness and wounds. Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from thee; lest I make thee a desolation, a land not inhabited. 9. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: 10 turn again thine hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets. To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is become unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it. 11. Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: pour it out upon the children in the street, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the hus- 12 band with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days. And their houses shall be turned unto others, their fields and their wives together: for I will stretch out my 13 hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD. For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even 14 unto the priest every one deaieth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of my people 15 lightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: there- fore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD. 16. Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls: but they said, We will not 17 walk therein. And I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet; 18 but they said, We will not hearken. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, 19 what is among them. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words; and as for my law, 20 they have rejected it. To what purpose cometh there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacri- 21 fices pleasing unto me. Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people: and the fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them; the neighbour and his friend shall perish. 22. Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country; and a great nation 23 shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon 24 horses; every one set in array, as a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Zion. We have heard the fame thereof; our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and 25 pangs as of a woman in travail. Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for there 26 is the sword of the enemy, and terror on every side. O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter 27 lamentation; for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us. I have made thee a tower and a 28 fortress among my people; that thou mayest know and try their way. They are all grievous revolters, going about with slanders; they are brass and iron: they all of them deal cor- 29 ruptly. The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed of the fire: in vain do they go on 30 refining; for the wicked are not plucked away. Refuse silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them. Chap. 5. This chapter sets forth yet further the grievous iniquity of the people, both in the line of corrupt morals and of idol worship, coupled with frequent intimations that such guilt must bring down upon them the retributions of Divine justice. 1. This proposition, "Go, explore the city of Jerusalem, and search diligently for one truth-loving man who executes justice; and if you can find one such, I will pardon the city," gives us a very strong view of the utter and universal degeneracy of the people. It reminds us of Abraham's plea for Sodom, and the Lord's pledge to spare it if he could find ten righteous men in it. H. C. The Lord asks importunately that "a man" may be found, and then He defines and describes what He means by "a man," in the words, "one that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth." Such is His description of true manhood. So, then, the true man is he to whom truth—that which is right, that which is in accordance with the will of God—is the all-important thing. The habit of his mind, the purpose of his life, is to discover this truth—to know what is right. And when what professes to be truth comes before him, he weighs it in the balance of conscience, tests how it tallies with the mind and will of God; and according to its agreement thereto he approves or disapproves, he gives his judgment. And then, when his judgment is formed, his mind made up, as we say, he does not linger in the outer courts of mere approbation, but he presses on into the very sanctuary, the holy of holies, of corresponding action—he "executeth judgment." Having sought, seen, approved the right, he does it; not once now and then, but habitually. Such is the man after God's own heart, such the Divine description of what manhood really is. P. C. 2. The men of Jerusalem swore by Jehovah, but this did not hold them to the truth. They swore falsely and perjured themselves. Scarce anything can be a surer test of the moral sentiments of a people than this. H. C. 3. The eyes, turned upon or toward an object, denote not only a diligent inspection and nice discernment of it, but also an earnest expectation or looking after it. The phrase may here be taken in both senses—that God both seeth and discerneth the truth, and also expects it from others, especially from those who call upon His name in attestation of it. Blayney. What God requires of man. "O Lord, are not Thine eyes upon the truth?" This is better rendered, "O Lord, look not Thine eyes for fidelity?" Faith is the grand requirement. It is the condition of communion between man and God, and man and man. Scripture lays stress on this. Faith cannot be a mere logical abstraction or a condition beyond the reach of man. It must be practical—within the power of the will, and such as may be reasonably looked for in all. "Fidelity," the Old Testament equivalent for the New Testament "faith," has its expression in reality, honesty, thoroughness. These are the marks of the man God delights to honor, and they are the obligation of all (Mic. 6:8). P. C. 3-6. Chastisement thwarted by universal stubbornness. The chastisements are evidently indicated as severe, and the reason of the severity is hinted in the preliminary question. God is looking for truth, looking for it in the midst of oaths broken and despised. He looks for faithfulness in all the ways in which it can be shown. There must be correspondence between promises and performances; there must be stability of character; the character must be such that men will be the same out of sight as in sight, working as ever in the Great Taskmaster's eye. Moreover, God cannot be put off by the most plausible appearance of fidelity; He knows always whether the heart is steadfast in its affection and zeal. And thus seeing all this insincerity among His people, this carelessness about truth, He chastises them to make them feel their wrong, attend to His will, and alter their deceiving ways so as to correspond with it. Y. 4,5. There may be some hope, even for a wicked nation, while the fear of God remains in any considerable number of the wealthy and ruling part of it; but when once they come to be thoroughly corrupted, then everything is ripe for ruin. And therefore the prophet, after complaining very pathetically of the sinfulness and impiety of the bulk of his countrymen, still thought there was one resource left. But when he found that those of high condition were as bad or worse than the rest, he immediately gives up all, and pronounces their destruction. Apb. Seeker. 11. This verse gives a reason why they can no longer be accounted the Lord's people. They have been exceedingly treacherous toward God, breaking their covenant with Him in ways most insulting and abusive. 14. The meaning of this is that all the words of the Lord against them by the prophet should be fearfully fulfilled, to their sure destruction. 15-17. Here, again, we have the Chaldeans. They are surely coming to lay the land desolate. They are both powerful and ancient; in power, coming up at that time to be the conquerors of all Western Asia; in antiquity, running back to the earliest ages after the flood. Their language bore some affinity to the Hebrew, yet was so unlike that the Jews would not understand it. The comparison of their quiver to an open sepulchre is graphic, significant of death and destruction. It is remarkable that the prophet returns so often to this fearful prediction of invasion and ruin from the north, the Chaldean power. No doubt it was the merciful design of God to appeal to the fears of the people, and thus arouse them to serious consideration of their danger, and so of their great sin. For the same reason the Bible, and especially the New Testament, reveals the fearful doom of the wicked in the world to come. 18. Again we have this merciful limitation, "I will not make a full end with you." Fearful as this destruction and captivity were to be, a remnant would survive, and Judah be again restored. So God is wont to blend mercies with His judgments all along through this world of probation. But no such limitation appears in the testimony given in the Scriptures as to the final destiny of the lost! Nowhere does the Lord say, Nevertheless, I will not make a full and final end of your hopes and happiness! 21. To have noble capacities for attaining all needful moral truths, and glorious opportunities for doing all duty, and yet to use neither, but deliberately to paralyze the one, and neglect or even spurn away the other—this is the great sin of all sins; this it is that dooms to hopeless sinning and woe. H. C. No man ever yet offended his own conscience but first or last it was revenged upon him for it. So that it will concern a man to treat this great principle awfully and warily, by still observing what it commands, but especially what it forbids; and if he would have it always a faithful and sincere monitor to him, let him be sure never to turn a deaf ear to it; for not to hear it is the way to silence it. Let him strictly observe the first stirrings and intimations—the first hints and whispers of good and evil, that pass in his heart; and this will keep conscience so quick and vigilant, and ready to give a man true alarms upon the least approach of his spiritual enemy, that he shall be hardly capable of great surprise. On the contrary, if a man accustoms himself to slight or pass over these first motions to good, or shrinkings of his conscience from evil, which originally are natural to the heart of man, conscience will by degrees grow dull and unconcerned; from carelessness it shall fall into a slumber, and from a slumber it shall settle into a deep and long sleep, till at last perhaps it sleeps itself into a lethargy that nothing but judgment shall be able to awaken it. South. There is no greater mistake in the world than to suppose that we believe what we do not disbelieve. The common state with many of us is to do neither the one nor the other. Neither to think that Christ's word is true, nor yet that it is false; but to think nothing at all about it. But this is truly unbelief—truly, and in the scriptural sense of unbelief; because, although neither our tongue nor our understanding consciously says that Christ's word is false, yet our whole being says so daily; it gives its witness against Christ's truth, silently indeed, but quite decisively. T. Arnold. 22. This representation of Jehovah as terrible in the greatness of His power is surpassingly grand. When the waters of the vast deep are driven fiercely by the tempest, they toss wildly about the largest ships ever built by man, and even lift and bear away rocks vast and ponderous; yet, when they reach that low line of sand-beach where God has set their limit, they seem marvellously shorn of their power. The tiny sands build up the mighty breakwater, because God sets them there to mark the bounds beyond which the furious waves may not pass. And shall not that God be feared who is so great, and who is clothed with power so transcendently sublime? Shall not mortal man tremble before Him? H. C. Just so completely under God's control, at His bidding and for the accomplishment of His purposes, are all events set in motion in our world, all arrangements ordered, all tides of circumstance and influence. It is determined just how high they shall rise, just what provinces they shall cover, just what lines they shall reach, beyond what measurement they shall not go, and within what limits they shall retire. Every movement among the nations, every revolution in the empires of the world, every change in the phases of human destiny, all plans and all accomplishments are exactly limited of God. All things are in His hands, and He securely keeps the soul of every creature that trusts in His mercy. Surely in the floods of great waters, they shall not come nigh unto him. They may rise, and rage, and threaten to overflow his habitation and carry him away; but in God he is safe; nothing hurtful can reach him. Cheever. 31. Throughout this corrupt age of the nation, there were numerous false prophets, pretending to have messages from God, but of all living men most wicked and most palpably led by Satan. The priests themselves, horribly corrupt, made common cause with them, and availed themselves of their aid to augment their own influence. The people enjoyed their delusive promises of peace and prosperity. Hence, the Lord fitly asks, What will they all do in the latter end, the final issue of such a course of horrible wickedness? Chap. 6. The same general strain continues through this chapter. Judging from its scope, we must assign it to the same date as the two next preceding. It paints the sins of the people; rebukes their hypocrisy; and repeats the fearful threatenings of the Chaldean invasion. H. C. 1. Jerusalem was in the lot of the tribe of Benjamin (Josh. 18:28), on which account the inhabitants are addressed by the name of "the children of Benjamin," and are directed to leave the city, which God was about to destroy, and to take refuge in the mountains. Tekoa, according to Jerome, was a little town about twelve miles from Jerusalem, and Beth-hacerem (probably so called from the vineyards round about it) another little town on the same side, but nearer Jerusalem; and both of them in the mountainous parts of Judah, south of the capital. 4,5. The alacrity and eagerness with which the Chaldeans undertake and execute the commission with which they were charged, is described in this and the following verse in a beautiful vein of poetry. Though it was late in the day before they received their orders, they are for beginning their march immediately; and though it was night before they got to the place, they are unwilling to put off the assault till morning. Blayney. 6,7. The ancient mode of besieging walled cities was by raising a high mount outside, around the city, as high or even higher than the city walls. In this work, as well as in their machinery, trees and timber would be used. This visitation of judgment on the city was due her for her oppression of her poor and of her servants. (See chap. 34:8-22.) Oppression had become her ruling passion. Her wickedness poured forth its developments and manifestations as a fountain does its waters. H. C. 8. Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem. Take warning by the many threatenings and judgments I have denounced against thee; amend thy ways and doings, lest if thou persist in thy wickedness my mind and affection be utterly alienated from thee (see Ezek. 23:17, 18; Hos. 9:12), and I give thee up to ruin and desolation. This threatening God fulfilled afterward when He suffered the city and nation to be utterly ruined and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; but it still received a further completion in that final desolation brought upon them by the Romans, under Titus and Vespasian. W. Lowth. 10,11. The prophet sees and feels the solemn urgency of the case, and therefore personally longs to have his messages reach the hearts of the people and bring them to repentance. But he meets only resistance, hard hearts scorning his words and hating his Divine Master. Where can he find a man to hear? "To whom shall I speak and bear this testimony? Who will hear it?" An "uncircumcised ear" opens not itself to God and has never been consecrated to Him—circumcision being the ancient rite of consecration. They cannot hear, because they do not love and choose to hear. They intensely hate and loathe the word of God. 13. Covetousness (the passion for unrighteous gain is the sense of the original) was one of the crying and damning sins of the people. Prophet and priest alike were false, pretending to speak for God, but really speaking only for the "father of lies." That the fearful degeneracy of the people was largely due to the influence of false prophets and corrupt priests is repeatedly intimated in the records of those times. But for their influence, the true prophets would very probably have been heard to purpose, and the people have been saved. H. C. Of covetousness, cunning is the chosen counsellor and guide. It finds its way, as by instinct, through all the intricacies of the great labyrinth of fraud. It parts with no company and refuses no aid through fear of contamination. Blood is not too sacred for it to buy, nor religion too Divine for it to sell. From the first step in fraud to the dreadful consummation of apostasy or murder, covetousness is familiar with every step of the long, laborious and fearful path. Could we only see it embodied, what a monster should we behold! Its eyes have no tears. With more than the fifty hands of the fabled giant, it grasps at everything around. In its march through the world it has been accompanied by artifice and fraud, rapine and injustice, cruelty and murder; while behind it have dragged heavily its swarm of victims—humanity bleeding, justice in chains, and religion expiring under its heavy burdens; orphans and slaves and oppressed hirelings, a wailing multitude, reaching to the skirts of the horizon; and thus dividing the earth between them (for how small the number of those who were not to be found either triumphing in its van or suffering in its train), it has, more than any other conqueror, realized the ambition of gaining the whole world, of establishing a universal empire. J. Harris. An absorbing master passion, like covetousness or ambition, when it has grown so great as to domineer over the enslaved soul, although it may exclude some other inconsistent passion, does not reign alone, but has around and behind it a gloomy train of satellites, which are little tyrants in turn. Covetousness—let it sway the soul, and suspicion, fraud, falsehood, discontent, envy, malice, will get as firm a foothold as the master demon himself, and no power of his can afterward drive them from his company. The miser cannot be also a prodigal, but he must have spirits of hate and death in his soul. So ambition may exclude covetousness from the throne, but it has another train of its own familiars, as greedy, if not as base as those of covetousness. T. D. W. It never strikes men of this sort that there is a more excellent way to satisfy and exhilarate the heart. God's eye is upon this universal desire for large possessions, and He can make a Divine and truly wise use of the desire. He turns our thoughts to the heavenly, the unseen, the eternal. Man does well in having the largest views as to possessions; he does well in looking to an immense increase of goods. It is a grand thing when he can pull down his barns and build greater, if it is only spiritual wealth that he is heaping up. In this gathering of goods there is no spoiling of the brethren, leaving them hungry, naked and unsheltered. The spiritual wealth of the godly man makes poverty to none. Nay, rather—beautiful contrast!—the richer he becomes, the richer he makes all with whom he comes in living contact. Y. 14. This case should be an admonition against this form of sin in all ages and under all circumstances. When God is using His agencies of discipline and affliction for good moral ends, let us take care lest we counteract His efforts! It is fearful at such a time to whisper comfort to smitten hearts by saying, "For no sin of yours;" "No hand of God in this;" "Bear up under your inevitable fate, and make as little of it as possible." It were infinitely better to say nothing than to speak at random, or to speak without noticing or understanding what God aims to accomplish. H. C. 15. He who, after the commission of great sins, can look God, his conscience and the world in the face without blushing, gives a sad demonstration that he is too far gone in the ways of sin and death to be reclaimed to God or recovered to himself without a miracle. For having lost not only the substance of virtue, but the very color of it too (as the philosopher called blushing), and the principles of morality having, upon the same account, lost all hold of him, he now seems to claim a place in the highest rank of sinners; and from the condition of the actually disobedient and (as yet) impenitent, to have passed into the unspeakably worse estate of the desperate and incurable. For though Almighty God is very free and forward in the addresses of His grace to the souls of men, yet still there must be something in them for grace to work upon—to wit, something of natural spiritual sense and tenderness; which, if once extinct and gone (as they may be, and God knows too often are), the Spirit of God will find nothing in such a soul to receive His impressions. South. The sin against the Holy Ghost is set forth here. For the sin is no one definite act, but a condition of mind which renders repentance hopeless and persistence in sin certain (cf. Revised Version, Mark 3:29, where the true reading is as there given, “is guilty of an eternal sin”). But is not this the condition described in the text, described vividly, accurately? They had hardened themselves till repentance, yea, even shame, on account of “abomination” was utterly absent from them. “‘They were not at all ashamed,’ no tinge of it, not the least ‘blush’ was visible. Was it not certain that such people who would go on, as they did, in sin, were in danger of eternal sin?” Hence they had never forgiveness, and the prophet was forbidden (see chap. 7:16) even to pray for them. P. C. Custom in sinning never fails in the issue to take away the sense and shame of sin. And the shameless person cannot but add iniquity to iniquity, until his recovery becomes utterly impossible. For where there is no place for shame, there can be none for repentance. Shamelessness naturally and necessarily seals a man up under impenitence, and impenitence seals him up to destruction. South. 16,17. The “old paths” were the ways of their early fathers, who walked humbly with God, and adhered zealously to His worship as opposed to the worship of idols. So walking, they would find rest and peace. This pending invasion need not alarm them. They would also have peace of soul, a consciousness of right-doing, and a sense of God’s favor. But they said, “No, we will not walk in those ways.” The “watchmen,” set of God over the people, were the true prophets, their spiritual shepherds. The same figure is drawn out more fully, Ezek. 3:17 and 33:7. H. C. 16. The old path which men with the word of God in their hands and His grace in their hearts took to serve Him in this world, and to dwell with Him in heaven in the next, is the right one. By abiding in their old path, we are most likely to abide in the true faith. Such is the very counsel which God expresses by the prophet in a figure drawn from pastoral life, and intelligible to all who are in any measure familiar with the scenery of our glens and the habits of the sheep. Wherever they have to skirt a precipice, or wind through the black morass, they march in single file, and stick to the old, beaten path, trodden down and marked even on scattered stones and outlying rock by the feet of generations that have gone before; and referring to this, God addresses His people thus—“Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” And so shall we, in the old faith of “Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” safely and sweetly sheltered from every storm in the clefts of that Rock of Ages. Guthrie. The case assumed is that of a traveller, who, on his journey, finds himself at the opening of many ways, and knows not with any assurance which of them leads to his resting-place, or which of them will bring him thither by the most direct and the safest road. The place which he seeks is a most ancient city, the way to which men have traversed in all ages. That fresh foot-path through the flowery meadows, that bridle-path round by the marshes, this fresh cutting through the hills—these will not do for him; he must ask for the old path. But there may be more old paths than one. The broad and pleasant way that leadeth to destruction is as old as and far better frequented than the straight road that leadeth unto life. It is, therefore, necessary to seek not only “the old path,” but “the good way.” Although every old way may not be good, the good way is certainly old; if, therefore, the traveller finds and follows the way that is both old and good, he is safe—he shall without fail reach his home at last, and “find rest to his soul.” As this last expression occurs only in one other place, the mind is carried forward to our Saviour’s invitation: “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, . . . and ye shall find rest to your souls.” And to come is not to come to Him, but by Him; for again He says, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” There was never yet found, and never will be found, any way of rest or safety for the soul, but by Him. And this is the old way. The apostle, indeed, calls it “a new and living way” (Heb. 10:20), as having then received new and fuller illustration; yet it is a way as old as the fall, as old as the creation; and indeed, in the purpose and foreknowledge of God, older than the creation. It was not then, when the apostle wrote, a way newly opened, for it existed before all time; nor was it then newly revealed, for it had been made known to man so soon as he had fallen; nor was it then newly made use of, for all the Old Testament saints were saved by the same grace of Christ, and justified by His righteousness, and their sins pardoned through His blood, and expiated by His sacrifice, the same as those who have lived under the New Testament. In those latter days this ancient path had been more clearly shown and more fully opened up—just as now many an old road is opened up to the sun and air by the removal of the dense foliage that grew on either side and met overhead, admitting only here and there some stray beams of the sun, and allowing only a few glimpses of the clear blue sky. In all time there is but one way of salvation; there never was any other, and never will be. It is therefore our course, as it was formerly, still to inquire for the old path, the good old way, the pleasant way of Christ. Kitto. The course of life should be determined after thoughtful deliberation. Jeremiah is to “stand in the ways and see.” It is foolish to go with the multitude without individual convictions of what is right, or to follow our own private impulses blindly and aimlessly. The choice should fall on a good way. Other ways may be smooth, pleasant, flowery at the starting, only to lose themselves in the pathless wilderness, while this may look more rugged and steep at first; but it should not be the present attractiveness, but the direction, the whole course and the end of a way, which should determine our choice of it. There are old paths of right. Religion has not to be made anew. It is not left for the latest saint to discover the way of holiness. Having found the right way, we should forthwith “walk therein.” Knowledge is useless without practice; nay, guilt is aggravated if, knowing the right, we follow the wrong. In the right way is rest for the soul. Even while on the earthly pilgrimage many quiet resting-places may be found (Ps. 23:2), through all the course an inward peace may be enjoyed (Prov. 3:17), and at the end will be found the perfect rest of the home of God (Heb. 4:9). Adeney. “Ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein.” Asking and acting, inquiry after the right way, and a resolute determination to follow it—when these conditions are supplied there can be little doubt as to the issue. A life of practical godliness, based on faith in revealed truth, springing from the inspiration of the spirit of truth and purity in the secret soul—this is the way. It is the “old way.” New as regards the light Christianity has shed upon it, new as regards the revelation of Him in whose redeeming work its deep foundations have been laid, it is “old” as regards its essential principles of faith and righteousness. The martyrs, prophets and holy men of every age have left their glowing footprints upon it. Elijah ascended from it in his chariot of fire. David made the statutes of the Lord his delight as he pursued his pilgrimage along it. Abraham trod the same path, led on by the star of promise. Upon it Enoch walked in lowly fellowship with God. P. C. The law of the Christian life is continuous increase in the knowledge of the depths that lie in the old truths, and of their far-reaching applications. We are to grow in knowledge of the Christ by coming ever nearer to Him, and learning more of the infinite meaning of our earliest lesson that He is the Son of God who has died for us. The constellations that burn in our nightly sky looked down on Chaldean astronomers; but though these are the same, how much more is known about them at Greenwich than was dreamed at Babylon! A. M. Love, joy, humility, heavenly-mindedness, godly sorrow for sin and holy resolutions against it, are not promoted so much by novel speculations, as by placing in a just and affecting light the acknowledged truths of the Gospel, and thereby stirring up the mind by way of remembrance. “While I am in this tabernacle,” said Peter, “I will not be negligent to put you in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and are established in the present truth.” We appeal to the experience of every real Christian, whether the sweetest and most profitable seasons he has enjoyed have not been those in which he is conscious of having learned no new truth, strictly speaking, but was indulged with spiritual and transforming views of the plain, unquestionable discoveries of the Gospel. As the word of God is the food of souls, so it corresponds to that character in this respect among others—that the strength and refreshment it imparts depend not upon its novelty, but upon the nutritious properties it possesses. It is a sickly appetite only which craves incessant variety. R. Hall. Christianity is not a religion of sentiment, or philosophy, or speculation, or vague, glittering generalities, or merely negative teachings, but of definite, positive, fundamental, sharply defined principles of faith and living, which cannot be ignored, or questioned, or trifled with, and not jeopardize all that is vital to man's highest interest, in this world and the next. Doctrine is the rock on which the Church is built. Doctrine is the main weapon of her defence and aggressive power. Doctrine is the vital life of every believer. The Church is weak to-day, and sickly, and has not power to prevail with God or man, because not "rooted and grounded" in the knowledge and spirit of the distinctive, fundamental teachings of God's revealed Word. "The good old way" of apostolic faith, the old way of martyrs and reformers, and of a "great cloud of witnesses," who have testified for God, is widely departed from at many points. Sherwood. The theology which is pre-eminently needed in our times is that whose substance and manner have met the needs of men in all times. This, in its essential principles, is the old, time-honored theology of the Christian Church, with its two foci of sin and redemption, all viewed as dependent on God. It is based upon the solid granite rock (the only true petra) and built up of living stones in massive proportions, rising ever upward until its aspiring lines fade away in the bosom of the infinite, whither it leads us that there we may rest. That old theology—older than our schools, older than the earth and the stars—coeval with the Godhead; alway yet never old, never yet ever new; it is dateless and deathless as the Divine decree, yet fresh as the dawning light of a new day in every new-born soul; it has been known from the beginning to all penitent and believing souls; it is uttered in every humble prayer; it has been sung in such melodious and rapturous strains as have nowhere else found voice. Some one has said that it is a theology which can never be sung; but it is the only theology which has called forth the tenderest and loftiest tones of human feeling; which finds its full expression equally in that saddest of human music, the woful miserere which recalls the sacred, awful passion of our dying Lord, and the jubilant and triumphant anthem which celebrates His accomplished victory. That old theology, the living essence of our sacred Scriptures, abiding substance of our creed, the sense of our confessions, and the consensus of our schools, has been held and taught by the most piercing and soaring intellects of our Christian times—Athanasius and Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas, Luther, Melanchthon and Calvin, Turretine and Edwards; and through them it has taught and fashioned the most vigorous and advancing churches and nations of modern times. H. B. Smith. 20. The people still kept up the routine of the temple-worship. In this they made use of incense obtained from Sheba, a province of Arabia Felix, celebrated for its rich spices. But of what use were those costly spices of which God speaks? The people had no heart in their worship of God, and hence He could have no pleasure in their sacrifices. This last statement should be taken in its strongest sense. So far from merely taking no pleasure, He loathed and abhorred them. So it must be evermore when worship is offered to God in which the offerer gives not his heart. 24,25. The "fame" is the report, the tidings of the Chaldean approach. It unnerved the nation. They were utterly unable to cope with such a power. They knew that help from the God of their fathers could not be reasonably expected, because they had revolted from Him. Indeed, they had good cause to know that this invasion was the scourge of God on them for their sins. H. C. 27-30. The prophet a spiritual assayer. Of interest as a description of process of refining precious metals among ancient peoples. The grinding and washing of the ore to discover and separate the precious metals, the fusing of the silver with lead in order to its further purification, and the repetition of this under severer heat, are processes which are used to illustrate the influence of the words of revelation upon the human heart. M. To try the ways of the nation and its leaders by their conformity to the injunctions of the Divine covenant; to insist with inexorable severity upon the dignity and sole sovereignty of Jehovah; to testify unreservedly before high and low, and especially before the theocratic office-bearers, against every declension from Him and from His law; to proclaim the Divine judgments against the obdurately disobedient, and to be in some circumstances themselves the executioners thereof, and, on the other hand, to promise, when needful, deliverance and blessing—such were the duties which constituted the political agency of the prophets. Oehler. 28. "Grievous revolters" is, in the original, intensely strong—the superlative degree of revolt, corruption and wickedness. They are only brass and copper, when they should be gold and silver. They make others corrupt, marring all they touch. H. C. 29,30. The words refer to the office of an assayer of silver and gold; and the manner of assaying here intended is by the cupel. To separate the alloy from the silver, they add a portion of lead; and when all is fused together, and brought into a state of ebullition, the cupel absorbs the lead, and with it the dross or alloy; and the silver is left pure and motionless on the top of the cupel. The people are here represented under the notion of alloyed silver. They are full of impurities; and they are put in the hands of the prophet, the assayer, to be purified. The bellows are placed, the fire is lighted up, but all to no purpose; so intensely commixed is the alloy with the silver, that it cannot be separated. The nozzle of the bellows is even melted with the intensity of the fire used to effect the refinement; and the lead is carried off by the action of the heat; and the assayer melteth in vain, for the alloy still continues in union with the metal. The assayer gives up the process, will not institute one more expensive or tedious, pronounces the mass unfit to be coined, and denominates it reprobate silver (verse 30). Thus, the evil habits and dispositions of the Israelites were so ingrained that they would not yield to either the ordinary or extraordinary means of salvation. God pronounces them reprobate silver, not sterling, full of alloy, having neither the image nor the superscription of the Great King either on their hearts or on their conduct. Thus He gave them up as incorrigible, and their adversaries prevailed against them. This should be a warning to other nations, and indeed to the Christian Church; for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare these. A. C. 29. The idea of the verse is, that the people, being assayed as ores from the mine, cannot be purified; they afford no precious metal. Everything passes off in dross, and the process proves the utter worthlessness of the material subjected to this trial. The people are all and only dross. H. C.—The wicked are not plucked away. Or, “the bad are not separated.” By “the bad” are meant, according to the metaphor, “the base ingredients;” that is, the bad principles and habits, which prevail so much and adhere so closely, that all the endeavors and pains used by the refiner to purge them away and get clear of them are frustrated, and prove ineffectual; so that, as it follows in the next verse, nothing remains but to throw them aside, as a metal disallowed and cried down by authority, counterfeiting silver, but not capable of being brought to the sterling standard. Blayney. The dross of society, permitted thus to remain and flourish, spoils the social progress, even under the best instrumentalities, because they are not separated, the vile from the good. But this is a part of God’s administration under the atonement, in order that character should be thoroughly tried and developed, with its tendency and power; that of the evil, to do evil, and prevent good; that of the good, to do good, and be purified and perfected. Cheever. 30. Refuse silver shall men call them. As base money is refused by every one because it cannot bear the touchstone, so shall these hypocrites and evildoers be rejected both by God and by man; for none of their actions will bear the test of God’s laws, or abide His severe trial. The Greek word which is rendered “reprobate” in the New Testament has an allusion to this place; and, in pursuance of the same metaphor, the laws and judgments of God are often compared to a refiner’s fire. (See Prov. 17:3; Isa. 1:25; Zech. 13:9; Mal. 3:2, 3; 1 Pet. 1:7.) W. Lowth. This is the conclusion of the whole matter. The world will be compelled to call this people of Judah and Jerusalem “rejected silver;” refuse matter; proved to be good for nothing. The Lord hath assayed them, hath found them worthless, and hath rejected them. H. C. 7 : 1, 2 THE word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgement between a man and his neighbour; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even for evermore. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye have not known, and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, saith the LORD. But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not: therefore will I do unto the house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD; do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces? Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat ye flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: but this thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken unto my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day, I have sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers. And thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee. And thou shalt say unto them, This is the nation that hath not hearkened to the voice of the LORD their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth. Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and 32 their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind. There fore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, till 33 there be no place to bury. And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the 34 heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away. Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride: for the land shall become a waste. 8:1 At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and 2 the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves: and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for 3 dung upon the face of the earth. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the LORD of hosts. 4. Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD: Shall men fall, and not rise up 5 again? shall one turn away, and not return? Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden 6 back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turneth to his course, as a horse that rusheth headlong in the 7 battle. Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the ordi- 8 nance of the LORD. How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? But, 9 behold, the false pen of the scribes hath wrought falsely. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what manner of 10 wisdom is in them? Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall possess them: for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given to covet- 11 ousness, from the prophet even unto the priest every one deaeth falsely. And they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no 12 peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in 13 the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD. I will utterly consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the 14 leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, be- 15 cause we have sinned against the LORD. We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a 16 time of healing, and behold dismay! The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembleth; for they are come, and 17 have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those that dwell therein. For, behold, I will send serpents, basilisks, among you, which will not be charmed; and they shall bite you, saith the LORD. 18,19. Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! my heart is faint within me. Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: Is not the LORD in Zion? is not her King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their 20 graven images, and with strange vanities? The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and 21 we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I am black; 22 astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? 9:1 Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep 2 day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they 3 be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. And they bend their tongue as it were their bow for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they 4 proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD. Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother : for every brother will utterly supplant, 5 and every neighbour will go about with slanders. And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth : they have taught their tongue to speak lies ; they 6 weary themselves to commit iniquity. Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit ; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD. 7 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them ; for how 8 else should I do, because of the daughter of my people ? Their tongue is a deadly arrow ; it speaketh deceit : one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart 9 he layeth wait for him. Shall I not visit them for these things ? saith the LORD : shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this ? 10 For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wil- derness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none passeth through ; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle ; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled, 11 they are gone. And I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals ; and I will 12 make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant. Who is the wise man, that may understand this ? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it ? wherefore is the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that none passeth through ? 13 And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and 14 have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein ; but have walked after the stubborn- 15 ness of their own heart, and after the Baalim, which their fathers taught them : therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, 13 with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known : and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them. 17 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they 18 may come ; and send for the cunning women, that they may come ; and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush 19 out with waters. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled ! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our 20 dwellings. Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation. 21 For death is come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces ; to cut off the children 22 from without, and the young men from the streets. Speak, Thus saith the LORD, The car- cases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them. 23 Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches : but let him that glorieth 24 glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness, in the earth : for in these things I delight, 25 saith the LORD. Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all them which 26 are circumcised in their uncircumcision ; Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair polled that dwell in the wilder- ness : for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart. Chaps. 7, 8, 9. These chapters manifestly constitute one message. Not only is there no evidence of closing one message and beginning another throughout this portion, but the same subject continues on through the entire pas- sage. But it appears here without date. Yet a clew to its date is found in the evidence of identity as to circumstances and time between this message and that which commences in chap. 26. This evidence of identity as to circumstances and time lies in the following par- ticulars : 1. In each message the prophet was directed to go and stand in the Temple and de- liver it to the people who congregated—going out and coming in—there. (See 7 : 2 and 26 : 2.) 2. One of the salient points in each message, the one which manifestly attracted most atten- tion, was God's threatening to make this Tem- ple like Shiloh—i.e., to destroy it utterly. (Cf. 7 : 14 with 26 : 6.) 3. The burden of the exhortation and the only condition of sparing the Temple, city and people, is in each the same—“amend your ways and your doings.” (See 7:3-7 with 26:13.) This mention (chap. 26) gives us the date—viz., “in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim.” H. C. Chap. 7. Besides the prophets, who were commissioned to announce the approaching calamities of Judah and Jerusalem, there were others who took on themselves to flatter the people with opposite predictions. They taught them to look upon such threats as groundless, since God, they said, would have too much regard for His own honor to suffer His Temple to be profaned, and the seat of His holiness given up into the hand of strangers. Jeremiah is commanded openly to reprove the falsehood of these assertions, and to show, by an example in point, that the sanctity of the place would afford no security for the guilty; but that God would assuredly do by His house at Jerusalem what He had done unto Shiloh, and cast the people of Judah out of His sight, as He had already cast off the people of Israel for their wickedness (verses 1-16). God justifies the severity of these proceedings by a representation of the people’s impiety (verses 17-20). The prophet declares their sacrifices to be of no acceptance while they continue deaf to the calls of God’s messengers (verses 21-28). He specifies the gross idolatries with which they were defiled, and pronounces a heavy sentence of Divine vengeance both on the dead and on the living (verses 29-34). Blayney. 4. They that slight the words of truth, which would profit them, take shelter in words of falsehood, which cannot profit them. Now these lying words were, “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, are these. These buildings, the courts, the holy place, and the holy of holies, are the Temple of the Lord, built by His appointment, to His glory; here He resides, here He is worshipped, here we meet three times a year to pay our homage to Him as our King in His palace.” This they thought was security enough to them to keep God and His favors from leaving them, God and His judgments from breaking in upon them. The prophet repeats it because they repeated it upon all occasions. It was the cant of the times, it was in their mouths upon all occasions. The privileges of a form of godliness are often the pride and confidence of those that are strangers and enemies to the power of it. It is common for those that are furthest from God to boast themselves most of their being near to the Church. H. Under a vivid picture of a scene at the door of the old Temple, the prophet searches out a moral danger that is apt to accompany all public religious observances. Standing at the gate he sees a multitude of men crowding in to go through the forms of worship. He knows that they have just come from the selfish practice, in their markets, fields, streets and houses, of injustice, cruelty to the weak, overreaching “the stranger, the fatherless and the widow,” of every kind of social, commercial, political and ecclesiastical falsehood, for he goes on to specify all these; and what is a great deal worse, that they are privately intending to go back to the same kinds of meanness and outrage after the prayers and sacrifices are over. He also sees that the moment their want of integrity is pointed out, they will, after the Pharisaic fashion, undertake to throw over it the screen of a religious profession. They will answer, at every rebuke of their immorality, “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord,” as if they would make up, by the threefold repetition and noise of their zeal, for their hollow-heartedness. And so, having it for his business as a prophet of God to denounce such corruption everywhere, without apology for his Divine commission, without arguing the matter, without any roundabout or imbecile phraseology, he goes to the point at once, and begins, “Trust ye not in lying words; amend your ways and your doings.” The great instructive fact on which attention is to be fixed is this: that out of the multitude of persons who enter the sanctuary, many have only a formal, external and ostensible, not a substantial sympathy, or actual concern, with the holy Reality which is there embodied and presented. They throng the visible courts, without touching, in living faith, the sacred Presence, the life-giving hand of the Holy One who inhabits it. F. D. H. 5-7. This makes their moral duty toward their fellow-men exceedingly emphatic, and shows that one of the great, crying and fatal sins of the nation was its rotten social morals, the utterly corrupt moral life of the people. It was not their idolatry merely that ruined them. They had become horribly oppressive, cruelly unjust, fearfully false to all the duties of the second table of the law, as well as to those of the first. In all these things they must thoroughly amend their ways, else the Lord could not and would not let them remain in that land. 8-11. The idea of the false prophets which God here so strongly rebukes, was that they were saved from all danger of incurring His displeasure and His judgments for their sins by their religious worship in this Temple. This worship (in their view) bought for them an absolute plenary indulgence for all the sin they might choose to commit. They were so saved by it that they could go on and perpetrate all these abominations named in verse 9—stealing, murder, adultery, false swearing and idolatry—and yet have nothing to fear! This would be, indeed, making the house upon which God's name had been called "a den of robbers," where they might nestle securely, might house and shelter themselves against all danger from a just and holy God! 12. Shiloh, situated (Judges 21 : 19) "on the north side of Bethel, and on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem," the location of the tabernacle from the days of Joshua (18 : 1) to the death of Eli (1 Sam. 4), lay within the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, and had been utterly desolated when that kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrian arms, B.C. 722—i.e., one hundred and eleven years before Jehoiakim came to his throne. The Jews might look upon the doom of Shiloh, and see that God did not shield a wicked city from ruin because it had been the residence of His own visible glory among His people, and the one place of the required Temple worship. They might see that it was for the wickedness of His people Israel that God had laid that place desolate, and in this fact might read their own doom! H. C.—We cannot stand on Shiloh without an oppressive sense of its God-forsaken desolation. Scarcely a tree, not a dwelling is in sight; straggling valleys, too open to be termed glens, within an amphitheatre of dreary, round-topped hills, bare and rocky, without being picturesque, are the only characteristics of this featureless scene. Tristram. 13. They continued obstinate in their sin; that is proved by the testimony of God's messengers, by whom He spake unto them to return and repent, "rising up early and speaking," as one in care, as one in earnest, as one who would lose no time in dealing with them; nay, who should take the fittest opportunity for speaking to them early in the morning, when, if ever, they were sober and had their thoughts free and clear; but it was all in vain; God spake, but they heard not, they heeded not, they never minded; He called them, but they answered not, they would not come at His call. What God has spoken to us greatly aggravates what we have done against Him. H. God is ever speaking to His children. There is a Divine voice speaking, not to favored prophets ets in rare moments of spiritual elevation, but to all men, that all who will may hear. This voice comes to us in many forms. The voice of nature—the proclamation of the power and wisdom of God in the awful, silent speech of the stars (Ps. 19 : 3), and the gentler language which tells of His tenderness and beneficence in the songs of spring and the glad shout of the harvest. The voice of history. God is in history, and speaks to us through the events of the past, warning by judgments (verse 12), inviting by acts of deliverance and gifts of mercy (Ps. 105). The voice of providence in daily life. Has not God been speaking to us through our own experience, using various prophetic agencies—the advent of a new joy, the cloud of a great sorrow, a visitation of the angel of death to the home? Has He not repeatedly roused, invited, pleaded and consoled us with voices from our eternity? The voice of prophecy. God had often so spoken to the Jews before the days of Jeremiah, and reference is plainly made to this fact in the text. That voice still lives, because truth is eternal. Thus God speaks to us through the inspired thoughts of the Bible. The voice of Christ. He is the "Word" of God made articulate in the dialect of men (John 1 : 1-14). He who sees Christ hears the voice of God. The voice of conscience. This is God speaking within the soul. Every time we feel compunction at doing wrong or an inward urging to do the right God is pleading in our heart by direct communion, spirit with spirit. P. C. 15. That which will exhaust the long-suffering of God is clearly shown us. It is not the fact of sin, great sin, repeated sin, but it is when, as in the case before us, sin has been persisted in in spite of every kind and degree of plainest warning. God had not merely let them know of the peril of their conduct, but His loving solicitude for them had shown itself in the most marked ways. God not only spoke to them, but like as "those who watch for the morning" rise up early, so God Himself awoke early—i.e., He chose the most favorable hours, the most probable means for gaining attention to the truths which He, by His prophets, spoke to them. But it was all of no avail. "Ye heard not; . . . ye answered not." Now, it is sin persisted in, in spite of all such Divine solicitude so repeatedly manifested, that God will not pardon. P. C. 16. This prohibition of prayer, this forbidding the prophet, and, by implication, all other good men to pray any longer for the reprieve and pardon of the Jewish nation, most terribly sealed their doom! In no other way could the Lord testify so absolutely to His purpose to destroy. 22,23. There can be no doubt that this passage means, I never thought of requiring or of accepting bloody sacrifices without obedience. Comparing the one with the other, sacrifices are nothing—obedience is everything. Even when I brought your fathers out of Egypt and gave them My statutes by the hand of Moses, I was careful to promise My presence and favor only on condition of obedience, saying, “If ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people” (Ex. 19 : 5). On the very point now before us, the relative value of sacrifice and obedience, the Lord said, by Hosea (6 : 6), “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings;” in which passage the latter clause is the more precise statement. So Samuel said to Saul (1 Sam. 15 : 22), “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” The strong form is put forcibly and admirably by King David in his most penitent hour: “For Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; Thou delightest not in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Ps. 51 : 17). Passages of like import may be seen (Ps. 50 : 8–15 and Isa. 1 : 11–17). Great moral lessons lie here: first of all, that the rituals of worship have not the least value before God unless the heart be in them and they really represent a loving and obedient spirit; and next, that religious rites—the ceremonies and forms of worship—must never supersede and supplant essential morality in the sense of love supreme to God, and love impartial and equal toward all fellow-men—the latter evermore implying all the details of the second table of the law. So that when men think to make ritual services their price for an indulgence to sin with impunity, they need not expect, by such means, to bribe the Holy One! Let them know that He abhors their sin, and will be likely, in some decisive way, to show it! 31,32. This valley of the son of Hinnom lay on the south of Jerusalem. Tophet was a special locality in this valley. Here the Jews built chapels, fanes or small-sized temples for the worship of Moloch, in honor of whom they burned their own children in the fire. This murdering of children in idol worship was most revolting to Jehovah. And now, to make the form of God’s judgment on the nation a perpetual reminder of the sin which it punished, the Lord ordains that the place shall henceforth be one of general slaughter, so that it shall no longer be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but “the valley of slaughter,” and men shall bury in it till there be no more place to bury. Josiah had previously defiled the place to prevent its being used ever again for the murder of children in honor of Moloch. (See 2 K. 23 : 10.) Jewish writers testify that it was made the great receptacle for the filth of the city, and that a fire was kept continually burning there to consume this filth and the worms that forever fed upon it. Hence the place, with its ever-ascending columns of smoke, its stench, its loathsome associations of crime and of all abominations, became a vivid image of hell—the place of eternal abode and punishment for all the hopeless reprobates of the moral universe of God. The earliest reference to Tophet in the Scriptures is by Isaiah (30 : 33). The other references are 2 K. 23 : 10, where Josiah defiled it; and in Jeremiah, besides the present passage, are 19 : 6, 11–14. Without naming it, Jeremiah refers to it (31 : 40). The last verse of the Book of Isaiah, without naming the place either as Tophet or the valley of the son of Hinnom, yet manifestly alludes to it as a place not far from the holy city, to which, from time to time, the people would “go forth and there look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against God; for their worm shall not die, nor shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.” Gehenna in the New Testament is a word transferred from the Greek language, in which it means “the land of Hinnom.” It is well known that our Lord used this term for the place of future punishment. Since some suggestive word must be used, none could be found more appropriate and significant. The history of Tophet and Gehenna; the associations that clustered about it; the cruel murder of infants there in honor of Moloch; its doom to be a place of slaughter; the dreadful carnage that came as a just retribution for its horrid infant murders; the depth of its filth; the loathsomeness of its stench; its worms that never died; its fires that were never quenched, and its smoke that never ceased to rise in the distant view from the holy city—all conspired to make this a fearfully truthful image of hell. Chap. 8. The designation of date—“at that time”—and the general course of thought, combine to show that this chapter is closely con- nected with chap. 7, a part of the same message. It pursues the same subject, the impending doom coming upon the nation through the agency of the Chaldeans; its causes in the sins of the people; the bitterness and the hopelessness of this doom. 6. The Lord still speaks. After each appeal made to the people by messages sent through His prophets, He listens to catch the words of the people; but alas! none speak well; none of their words inspire hope of their repentance; no man gives his mind to reflection, saying, What have I done? Rather, after each momentary interruption, every man turns back to his course of sin, as the war-horse, roused by the trumpet-blast, rushes furiously to the battle. 7. These birds of passage understand when to turn their course and migrate from northern regions to southern, and again back to the northern. They mark the indications of the seasons and adjust their movements accordingly. But My people, saith the Lord, will not understand the laws of My moral kingdom; they will not see that sin brings ruin, and that nothing but substantial turning back to God brings promise of mercy. H. C. There is a spiritual instinct working in man with just as unerring certainty as that which guides the turtle, the crane and the swallow on their pathless way to climes and seasons at the distance of near half the globe; but man disobeys it, and disregards the revelation which appeals to it, and which was given for its cultivation and its guidance. Of course, the longer it is neglected and disobeyed, the less perceptible and the weaker it becomes. Still it never goes out of existence; there always remains the consciousness of immortality, the instinctive feeling of the necessity of preparing for the future world, and an instinctive warning and prediction of evil to come, if there be not this preparation. The direction in which this instinct impels the soul is always toward God, and to the exercise of prayer; and men experience it and disobey it countless millions of times in their habitual existence, experience it and disobey it almost unconsciously. If they yielded to the instinctive warning impulse and obeyed it, under guidance of God's Word, it would become a power of discernment and of knowledge in reference to the spiritual world, infinitely more wonderful in precision and far-reaching insight, even prophetic insight, than the instinct of animals in regard to the sphere of their existence in this world. Cheever. 8. It should be read, "Lo, certainly the lying pen of the scribes makes it" (the law of God) "into a lie." Of course these are false scribes, fellow-workers with the false prophets, who made it their business to pervert God's words and to misinterpret His law so that it could speak to them only falsehood and never truth. The whole verse expostulates with the people for their self-conceit and self-righteousness: How is it that ye boast of your wisdom and take to yourselves credit for having the law of God in your hands? Alas! that very law your false scribes and teachers pervert to a lie! 10-12. See the same sentiments, and nearly the same words, in chap. 6: 12-15. The repetition of set phrases is one of the features of Jeremiah's style. 19. They profess to think it marvellous that God does not take care of His own city, Temple and people. To this assumed state of their mind the Lord Himself responds: If ye regard Me as your God and Saviour, why have ye provoked Me to anger with your graven images and with your foreign idols that are only a breath, mere emptiness and vanity? How can you complain of Me for neglecting to save Jerusalem when she has done her utmost to repel Me away and provoke Me to exterminating vengeance upon her? 20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.** These are proverbial expressions, and very plain in their significance. They speak of golden opportunities forever lost; of salvation long within their easy grasp, yet utterly neglected; till at length ruin comes and salvation is no longer possible. The harvest-time is past, and no supplies for winter can now be gathered. Opportunities for salvation come before remediless damnation. The summer and the harvest come before the inexorable rigor and the stern wants of a cold and barren winter. But as God lets the laws of nature take their course and bring winter on in its resistless march whether the sluggard gathers in harvest or gathers not, so in his moral kingdom time rolls us on toward eternity; retribution stays not for the folly of the self-hardened sinner, but rather seems to hurry him on the more relentlessly to his appalling, inexorable doom! Oh, will there not be bitter and unavailing regrets in that world of the lost! Can there be one ingredient in their cup of woe more bitter than this, that their summer and their harvest came and went, and they were not saved? The sweet tones of mercy's voice fell gently on their ear, but fell unheeded! Love wept over their folly; fell at their feet imploring them to be wise—but love wept and implored only in vain! And now they are not only doomed, but damned. H. C. As a season of preparation for eternity, life may be regarded as sustaining the same relation which spring and summer do to the harvest. There is a time to plough and sow, and there is an appropriate time for the harvest, and if these are neglected, a gloomy winter sets in when there can be no sowing, and when it will be too late to secure a harvest. There are favorable seasons in life to secure salvation. They are, one after another, fast passing away. When gone they cannot be recalled; and the favorable influence which might have been secured to bear on our future being is gone forever. We can no more recall it than the farmer can command the sun of springtime to rise again, or the showers and dews of summer to come down in the dreary winter. The opportunity of salvation will have passed away forever. A. Barnes. We are made for the enjoyment of eternal blessedness; it is our high calling and destination; and not to pursue it with diligence is to be guilty of the blackest ingratitude to the author of our being, as well as the greatest cruelty to ourselves. To fail of such an object, to defeat the end of our existence, and in consequence of neglecting the great salvation, to sink at last under the frown of the Almighty, is a calamity which words were not invented to express nor finite minds formed to grasp. R. Hall. How inexpressibly mournful is the lamentation, The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved! How heart-breaking the wail, even of the weeping Saviour, over that beautiful and beloved city, once the Zion of the Holy One of Israel, and indulged with so many warnings, so many waitings, so much mercy, so much patience, so much long-suffering and forbearance, so many seasons of such gracious and gentle visitation, so many and such precious opportunities, precious and available, even to the last, and the last infinitely the most precious of them all! "Oh, that thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes!" Cheever. 22. The people are morally diseased; they have sinned against God and provoked Him to destroy them. They are warned by the prophet to repent and turn to God; they refuse and sin on. Destruction is come upon them. Might they not have avoided it? Yes. Was it the fault of God? No. Did He not send His prophets with the richest offers of mercy? Did He not give them time, the best instructions, and the most effectual means of returning to Him? Has not mercy, the heavenly balm, been ever at hand? And has not God, the great Physician, been ever ready to apply it? Yes. Why then are they not healed? Because they would not apply to the Divine Physician, nor receive the only remedy by which they could be spiritually healed. They, then, that sin against the only remedy must perish, because they might have had it but would not. It is not because there is a deficiency of grace, nor of the means of grace, that men are not saved; but because they either make no use or a bad use of them. Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, has tasted death for every man; but few are saved because they will not come unto Him that they may have life. A. C. This soul-destroying plague, must it run its course? or is there any cure? Is there no balsam, no physician who can arrest its ravages and restore the spirit's health, before it die the second death? Blessed be God, there is. The Gospel guides us to Gilead. It bids us go up and gather its balm; it reminds us of its great Physician, and invites us to carry to Him our sin-sick souls, and prove His skill, and reveals Him to us by that ancient name of His, Jehovah-Rophi, the Lord the Healer. . . . The holy life and atoning death of Immanuel are the balm of salvation; and it is by the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, that the Divine Physician applies them to the soul. He takes the things of Christ and shows them to the soul. He is the Spirit of Life, and heals those who are dying of their hurt, nay, even those who are dead in trespasses and sins. God's truth in the hand of God's Spirit, the Gospel applied by the Holy Ghost, the Balm of Gilead administered by the great Physician; this it is which brings health, peace, joy. Hamilton. The "balm" is a beautiful symbol of Christ. The Mount Gilead, the tree, the pierced side, the stream thence issuing and its mighty healing power—these severally send our thoughts to Mount Calvary, the cross, the pierced side of the Saviour, the precious blood and the unquestionable spiritual healing might there is therein. And Scripture is ever speaking of sin as a disease; of man as one whose health needs recovery. The analogies are obvious. And the "physician," who is He but that Divine Spirit whose office it is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto men? He so shows to us the meaning and intent of our Saviour's sacrificial death, that "by His stripes we are healed." Yes; while we all are the stricken with mortal disease, Christ is the balm that surely heals, and the blessed Spirit is He who reveals Christ to the soul. "For no man can say that Jesus is Lord"—that is, in all the full meaning of those words, and with sincere intent—"but by the Holy Ghost." P. C. Sin contains within itself no radical cure, no real reformation. Man is not led by sin into holiness. The means of recovery lie outside of the region of sin, beyond the reach of experience—they lie in the free grace of God, which sin very often opposes and rejects, when it comes with its healing medicines and its assurances of deliverance. The most which prudence can do, acting in view of the experienced consequences of sin, is to plaster over the exterior, to avoid dangerous habits, to choose deep-seated sins in lieu of such as lie on the surface. Exchanging thus Pharisaical pride for vice, respectable sin for vulgar sin, sin that does not injure for sin that injures body and good name, it seems to the unthinking to have worked a marvellous cure. But there is no true reformation, no giving of a new form to the soul, in the case. The physician has changed the seat of the malady, he has not driven it out of the constitution. T. D. W. Balm was offered, and the physician's skill to apply it, but they would not come to be healed. They preferred the pleasures of sin along with its risks and pains. That their state was bad they knew, but they believed it was not near so bad as the prophet made it out to be. Only physicians can tell how many cases of bodily disease might be cured if the sick were willing to go to the root of the matter, and mend their habits as to eating and drinking, working and playing. Ignorance, indifference, prejudice and unblushing lust of the flesh lie at the bottom of much bodily disease, explaining both how it originates and how it continues. And similar causes operate with regard to such ills as afflict the consciousness of the entire man. Sinners must have a will to go to Jesus if they expect healing and life, and then life more abundantly. Y. Deep down in the nature of God, deep down in the nature of the world, the idea of healing lay. God needed to be a healer, as the world needed healing. Sin brought disease and disorder into the world; God brought healing and harmony. The Divine purpose in the creation of man was that he should become holy and blessed in the free service of God; and since man has fallen into sin through the abuse of his freedom, God carries out His original purpose under the new conditions which sin has produced. He works the painful consequences of sin into the plans of love, and thus makes them salutary instead of destructive. Toil teaches obedience, pain produces humility and death directs aspiration to a higher than a worldly hope. And thus the darkest human experiences enter as elements into the great redemptive process, and through the very evils that his sin has brought upon him man is healed and educated for the destiny for which he was created. God as the healer is revealed to us by Christ Jesus. He manifested the Father in the special form of the Healer. The miracles performed by Him consisted chiefly in healing. He went about all Galilee healing all manner of sickness and disease among the people. And the reason of this was that bodily diseases represented the more dreadful diseases of the soul which He came to remove. Every cure which He wrought represented the deliverance of the soul from some particular kind of moral evil. . . . In the two great facts, that God has given His own Son as the Healer of the world, and has provided the means of healing from the foundation of the world, we have a guarantee that He will heal our Marah of trouble or disease, whatever it may be, if we seek His help. The individuality of human beings makes ordinary medicine always more or less empirical and tentative. When every organism is a separate problem, and no two constitutions are absolutely alike, it follows that the treatment of disease must necessarily be very uncertain. But the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin; and His salvation is the only universal panacea suited to all, sufficient for all and available to all. Macmillan. Chap. 9. The connection of thought continues through this chapter unbroken. Hence, we can have no doubt as to its date and occasion. It is part of the same message as the two preceding chapters. 1,2. This beautiful and touching utterance of grief has been justly admired by all who know how to appreciate the sensibilities of a benevolent heart. To estimate its fitness and force, we need to consider carefully the circumstances that called it forth. Think what he has been saying, and also what he goes on to say. His prophetic eye sees his own beloved country laid desolate; a fierce and bloody foe comes in upon the land from the north; the neighing of his horses is heard from Dan; they sweep over the land, leaving it a waste of ruin—as if troops of serpents and vipers were let loose upon them, whom no magic skill could charm. He hears the wail of Zion's sons and daughters coming up from their desolate wanderings in a strange land. They would fain ask, Why are we thus spoiled? Why does not Jehovah take care of His own city and Temple? The answer comes: Why have they provoked Me unto such judgments with their idols and their incorrigible wickedness? Alas! he hears them bewailing their wasted opportunities, and mourning that their day of hope and mercy is past forever! These are the things that oppress his heart so heavily. The fearful crisis is not yet past. These calamities have not already fallen (save only in part) upon the nation, but they are close at hand. H. C. Such Christians as the "weeping prophet" represents are men and women of great spiritual power. The world does not like them, but cannot help respecting them. We love realities, after all. We feel the power of the man who knows the most of them, and feels them most profoundly. The man or woman who takes God's views of things, interprets human life as God interprets it, looks out on eternity as God reveals it, and whose visage bears the marks of inward struggle of soul with the facts of human destiny as God declares them, is a power with us all. If we come into deep waters, and the billows go over our heads, we look around gasping for the friendly word or look or hand of such to cheer us. The very men we have laughed at, or shrunk from, are those whose experience we want then. Phelps. 5. There is a reflex influence from every tone and gesture of insincerity, which strikes back and debilitates the moral energies. Utter what you do not believe, and you will have less and less capacity for believing anything. Pretend what you do not feel, and feeling will die out. The retribution is dreadful, and sure, and works by an inevitable law. Or if you stifle the religious life that really wakes and rises within you, denying it air and light, you forfeit no less the blessing of the candid and sincere. F. D. H. 6. It is through the intrinsic deceitfulness of their hearts, their love of it and passion for it, that they refuse to know Me. That they live, not knowing God, is by no means their misfortune or their fate; it is truly and simply their fault and their crime. They choose to have it so. They might know the Lord, but they will not. H. C. 7. Such being their character, the Lord must deal with them in the way of judgment if He has any designs of mercy for them. He uses the furnace of affliction as the worker in metals uses the fire to purge away dross and all impurities from the ore. "How else should I do, because of the daughter of My people?" No other course is consistent with either God's righteousness or His grace, inasmuch as the people are as they are and act as they do. W. H. G.—He will make trial of lesser afflictions, before He brings upon them utter destruction, for He desires not the death of sinners. They shall not be rejected as reprobate silver till the Founder has melted in vain (chap. 6: 29, 30). He speaks as one consulting with Himself what to do with them that might be for the best, and as one that could not find in His heart to cast them off and give them up to ruin, till He had first tried all means likely to bring them to repentance. H. 8. Pretences of the truth are a disadvantage; for they argue a conviction of the truth, and yet a refusal of it. It is a kind of practical blasphemy to veil an impure life under a profession of faith; for we do, as it were, tack on and fasten the errors and excesses of our lives upon religion. There is less dishonor brought to God by open opposition than by profession used as a cover and excuse for profaneness. Manton. The assigning of pretexts and motives for our conduct which do not exist is a very common fault of our sinful nature. It takes place often in regard to actions of trifling importance. Little acts of selfishness are whitened into something better; excuses are pleaded which are unreal; by a series of petty deceptions unpleasant impressions concerning ourselves are brushed away from the minds of others. And the little deceptions pave the way for great. They blind us to ourselves. The pretexts we use to impose on others we half put faith in, and thus we weave a web of falsehood in which we ourselves are entangled. T. D. W. 10-22. The terrible threatenings of love. There are few more awful passages of Scripture than this. The doom denounced on the guilty people is indeed dreadful. Nevertheless that doom had not yet descended. There was a merciful pause, during which space was given for repentance. Meanwhile, the prophet was bidden to utter these threatenings. P. C. 15, 16. (See 8: 14.) God will give them a thoroughly bitter portion, a lot intensely afflictive and loathsome. This is tersely indicated by the bitterest things known, upon which they were to be fed, and which they must drink. Some of them were to be taken captives to a land before unknown; others must fall by the sword. Precisely these judgments had been threatened long before for these sins. (See Lev. 26: 33 and De. 28: 64.) Another prediction of this captivity, yet more full, may be seen (Jer. 25: 9-11). H. C. 17. The mourning women, cunning women. It was an ancient custom of the Hebrews, at funerals and on other like occasions, to make use of hired mourners, whose profession it was to exhibit in public all the signs and gestures of immoderate and frantic grief, and by their loud outcries and doleful songs to excite and stir up a real passion of sorrow in others. Women were chiefly employed in this office; and Jerome, in his comment upon this verse, says that the practice was continued in Judea down to his days. As it required a degree of skill to discharge this office, for that reason these "mourning women" are likewise called "cunning"—that is, skilful women. Frequent allusions to this custom are to be met with in Scripture. Nor was this practice peculiar to the Jews, as many instances of it occur in heathen writers. Blayney.—Every particular here alluded to is observed on funeral occasions at the present day. There are in every city and community women exceedingly cunning in this business. These are always sent for and kept in readiness. When a fresh company of sympathizers comes in, these women "make haste" to take up a wailing, that the newly come may the more easily unite their tears with the mourners. They know the domestic history of every person, and immediately strike up an impromptu lamentation, in which they introduce the names of their relatives who have recently died, touching some tender chord in every heart, and thus each one weeps for his own dead, and the performance, which would otherwise be difficult or impossible, comes easy and natural, and even this extemporaneous, artificial sorrow is thereby redeemed from half its hollow-heartedness and hypocrisy. Thomson. 23,24. These impressive words—good for all time and for all people—must of course be considered here in their special reference to the fearful ruin then impending over the city and nation of the Jews. In view of such perils, in an exigency so fearful, let not the wise statesman glory in his wisdom, as if his skill could save the nation. Let not the mighty chieftain glory in his military science, nor in the prowess and valor of his warriors. Let not the rich man glory in his riches; for what can gold avail toward the salvation of his country in this hour of her peril? but let him who would glory at all glory in this alone, that he understandeth and knoweth God, and of course that he adjusts himself to this knowledge of God as one who exercises loving-kindness indeed, but also judgment and righteousness in all the earth; for these qualities of his character are dear to God, and He will surely reign in harmony with them, and will give them absolute sway in His moral government over nations and over men. Hence, if they would penitently seek His favor, they might rely on His loving-kindness; otherwise they must expect naked judgment and righteousness, for the time had come to visit judgment on all the incorrigibly wicked. It was the ruin of the Jews of that age that they had reckoned without God. Their plans and hopes had left out the Almighty, and made no account of His great attributes of loving-kindness, justice and righteousness. They had trusted in their own wisdom, might and riches, and had made these their glory. H. C. 23. Strength, worldly wisdom or riches are totally inadequate to furnish any pledge of human happiness; and they provide not the least exemption from the evils to which we are exposed. They never, for a moment, can confer on us the approbation of our own minds; and unless man approve himself, he never can enjoy the suffrage of his fellow-creatures. Tranquillity of mind, especially in the prospect of futurity, can never be the portion of these endowments separately or combined; that peace of mind which passeth all understanding can never be the result of these qualities; on the contrary, they have a tendency to destroy it by engaging us in new schemes and enterprises, which continually occupy the mind. Nor did any man on his elevation to riches, or any distinction, ever arrive at such a condition as that he felt himself happy and able to look around him, and to reflect on the future or the past with composure and satisfaction. Nor is there protection in riches, strength and wisdom of a worldly kind, against the attacks of enemies, against the complaints of discontent, against the perturbations of ungovernable passions, against the canker of corrupt principles. And they are of a very transient duration and possession. Some of them are extinguished in a moment. The least derangement of the nervous system may throw into desolation the most magnificent fabric of the human frame. And with respect to riches, do they not make themselves wings, and leave their possessors behind? And it is likely that, if prudence were left to determine, the probability of success would not be equal to the probability of failure. But even suppose they could be carried forward to the end of life, how short is that period when compared to that vast duration which awaits us beyond it! R. Hall. You cannot truly live and merely possess. You are out of line and out of touch with God's great order if you keep yourself and its belongings to yourself. If you merely accumulate, if you merely grow big in fortune, knowledge, culture, deftness, or anything else you are a monstrosity, a deformity. And so it is with knowledge. Suppose you heap up knowledge. You know all the languages, and all the philosophies, and all the sciences. What then? If that is all—if your knowledge and culture do not go out from you, are not worked at their highest power to form and stimulate society's thought, to lift its ignorance, to expose and fight its popular fallacies—you are nothing better than an unloaded lumber-wagon. Remember that intellectual power is not unselfishness. Remember that literary and artistic pursuits, while they may be beautiful ministers to humanity, may be only ministers to self. Remember that there may be an intellectual and aesthetic sensuality, no less than a physical and gross sensuality. You are debtors. The worse the world is, the more it needs the good man. The more ignorant it is, the louder is the demand on the Christian scholar. The place of the true man to-day is in the world, not above it. Vincent. 24. But let him that glorieth.** To glory in a thing, is to depend on it as the means or cause of procuring happiness. But there can be no happiness but in being experimentally acquainted with that God who exercises loving-kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth. A. C.—The true glory of the worst of men is that he can be regenerated. The glory of the best of men is that he has been regenerated. The great end to be aimed at is that every man should exult in his having been made a partaker of the Divine nature. Y. To know God denotes not merely an acquaintance with His character, but a suitable state of mind toward Him; the terms see and know denote their appropriate affections; they indicate the state of the heart. To know God is to feel affected toward Him in a manner suited to His character, to be submissive to His government, willing to be dealt with by His administration, to be in subjection to His authority, to yield obedience to His will. It is, in fact, another expression for that religion which unites the heart of the creature to the Creator. Now this, the prophet tells us, is a ground of boasting. The principles of true religion supply the deficiencies that belong to the former acquisitions, and what is denied to those is with the greatest propriety transferred to true religion. R. Hall. The knowledge of God and personal fellowship with Him are immeasurably more worth our seeking and rejoicing in than all those endowments which to the carnal eye are so full of charm. There is a natural tendency in men to rejoice unduly in the good that they derive by birth, or education, or the favor of providence, forgetting that the chief good is something of a different kind, something that must come to them in a different way. Nothing that tends to enrich and adorn and gladden our life in this world is to be despised; but if we measure things by a true standard, and esteem them according to their real and relative value, we shall place everything else that men call good or great beneath that which connects us directly with God and heaven and immortality. This higher good is more truly our own than anything else ever can be. Unlike other forms of good, it is incapable of abuse. It enables us, as nothing else can, to appreciate all that is true and good in this world. And it gives us the power to confer the greatest benefits on our fellow-creatures. W. Imitation of God will spring from the knowledge of Him. The more we know of Him the more we must love Him, and admiration will lead to resemblance in spirit and in life. "We love Him, because He first loved us." Knowledge depends on and leads to obedience (John 7:17). The knowledge of God sheds light upon the universe and life, and directs the soul and body into the channels of health, happiness and usefulness. It is connected with and culminates in Divine fellowship. In this way the character and presence of God are brought into closest contact with the spirit of man, his character is moulded into the image of the Divine original, and the joys of communion deepen and enlarge into the blessedness of heaven. "This is life eternal [even now], to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." M. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent;" and it is life temporal also, for godliness hath the promise of the life that now is, as well as that which is to come. The revelation of God—the Gospel of Christ—is our hope for future good, as it is the ground of the blessings from which we give public and united thanks. It is so, because it places us under the government of a just, omniscient, almighty and good Sovereign, to whom all our acts are known; to whom all hearts are open, and all thoughts are naked, and from whose dominions and administration no one can escape. It sets before us the highest possible motives to a virtuous life in the allurements of everlasting glory and joy in paradise; and it dissuades from vice by all that is dreadful in eternal pain; and thus it addresses our hopes and fears with a force which has no parallel. It provides for sinners pardon at the cross; and by a love passing knowledge subdues them to penitence. In the Redeemer's life we have a perfect example, in His precepts a guide for our conduct invariably safe, and so plain that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. The Scriptures assure us that the Gospel is the wisdom and power of God, the riches of His goodness, the brightness of His glory, the concentration of all possible power and motive, and that if it fail to save us, nothing can save us, and nothing remains for us but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. And while the Gospel is thus adapted to reform men beyond all other systems, it has also the aid of the Spirit of God superadded, a power beyond all argument, beyond all eloquence; a power which renovates the heart so that old things pass away, and all things become new; a power which in a short time effects the most happy changes in individuals, neighborhoods and communities; a power, in view of whose operations it is predicted that the knowledge of the Lord shall abound, all men know Him, wars cease, and the earth be filled with His glory. R. Tinker. 10:1, 2 HEAR ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; 3 for the nations are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are vanity: for one 4 cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move 5 not. They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them 6 to do good. There is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great 7 in might. Who would not fear thee, O King of the nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is 8 none like unto thee. But they are together brutish and foolish: the instruction of idols, it 9 is but a stock. There is silver beaten into plates which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artificer and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and purple 10 for their clothing; they are all the work of cunning men. But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able to abide his indignation. 11 Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens. 12 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and 13 by his understanding hath he stretched out the heavens: when he uttereth his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treas- 14 uries. Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in 15 them. They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish. 16 The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: the LORD of hosts is his name. 17, 18 Gather up thy wares out of the land, O thou that abidest in the siege. For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it. Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it. My tent is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains. For the shepherds are become brutish, and have not inquired of the LORD: therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks are scattered. The voice of a rumour, behold it cometh, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals. O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have devoured Jacob, yea, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation. Chap. 10. This chapter is manifestly not connected with the preceding, and appears to be distinct from the following one. The close connection indicated here between verse 2 and verses 3-16 favors the view that portents in the heavens are referred to here only because they are so fundamentally connected with the ancient systems of idolatry. In this view we need not suppose this passage to have been occasioned by the occurrence of any extraordinary portents at that time. It may or may not have been. There is ample reason for the allusion to portents, apart from the supposition of their recent occurrence. This message seems to have been sent in anticipation of the residence of the people among idolaters in their captivity. There they would come into the closest contact with the whole system. Hence the propriety of exposing it to their view as ineffably foolish, false, and baseless—as is done here. H. C. 2. The Chaldeans, among whom the Jews were destined to live in captivity, were particularly addicted to astrology, and attributed to the heavenly bodies a considerable influence over human affairs. This naturally tended to beget a religious dread and awe of those objects, from whence so much good or evil was supposed to be derived. Blayney. 3-5. There is no method so effective, none which the sacred writers so often adopt, to show the utter folly of faith in images and idols as to state with considerable detail how they are made, and hence show what they really are. (See this done by Isaiah, chaps. 40: 19, 20; 41: 6, 7; 44: 9-20; also in Ps. 115: 4-8.) Here they begin with cutting a tree out of the forest with the axe. All that it is now more or other than a tree the hands of the workman have made it. Then another set of workmen take it in hand; they deck it with silver and with gold; but this puts no attributes of the real God into it. They are obliged to fasten it with nails and hammers, so that it cannot move; else it could not even stand alone. Now they are "turned work" (Heb.), smooth and straight as the palm tree, but they speak not; none of them ever yet opened his mouth to utter a word. They must needs be borne by other hands, for they cannot walk. Be not afraid of such senseless, motionless, powerless things! They can do you no hurt, nor is it in them to do any good. Impotent alike to curse or to bless, it is simple folly to fear them, and, of course, unutterable folly to revere and worship them as God! H. C. Let living faith in the living God be lost, and at once resort will be had to symbols and substitutes for God, which, though in form they may be far different from the idols of the heathen, yet in substance and effect are the same. For we also may substitute reverence for those things which are associated with the worship of God for that worship in spirit and in truth which He alone cares for. Symbols, sacraments, creeds, churches, religious observances—any one of these may become an idol—that is, a substitute for God. They demand no strain and energy of our spiritual nature; the senses or the intellect can grasp them; and they make no such strenuous demand upon the surrender of the will, the yielding of the heart to God; they will let us do as we like, if not entirely yet far more than true spiritual worship ever will. P. C. 9. The prophet returns to the method of refuting the whole system of idolatry by giving the history of the manufacture of their gods. From Tarshish (Tartessus in Spain) they brought silver beaten out into thin plates for overlaying their wooden gods. Gold, in like manner, came from Uphaz, another name for Ophir, which lay on the southern shore of Asia. H. C. 10. There is no characteristic of the biblical revelation of God which is more striking than the emphatic representation of God as the living God. The intense personal and moral character which is ascribed to God raises the biblical conception of the Divine Being to a unique and commanding height. This peculiarity characterizes the very earliest forms of revelation in Genesis, and constitutes one of their claims to inspiration. This is the dominant idea of the Jewish religion throughout, differentiating it broadly from all systems of Pantheism and Emanationism. God is the active, energizing one who is in living contact with men, feels for them in trouble, sustains them in distress, is angry with them in sin, yet loves them through all. This idea receives its crowning glory in the teaching of Jesus concerning God's sympathy, interest and care for men. It is the key-note of those sacredest Scriptures, the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Prodigal Son. G. B. Stevens. The Scripture everywhere, in the ancient and in the later Testaments, manifests to us God as a person. If there be any authority in this word, if its inspiration comes from the Holy Ghost, which pervades all Scripture, making it holy, vital and majestic in every part, then God is here declared to us a person; as strictly a person in His existence and life as either of us, having all the elements and powers of a perfect personality in His eternal intelligence and will and heart. Our own personal constitution reflects, and one may say demonstrates, that personality in God. Personality is the highest fact in the universe. R. S. S. 11. This verse is written in Chaldee, as if the prophet designed to put these words in the mouths of the Jews, wherewith they might make a public profession of their own faith in the true God, and be able to answer the heathens that would entice them to idolatry. W. Lowth.—Nothing could be more palpable than the fact that those gods that were themselves made by human hands cannot be the one great God that made the earth and the heavens. In the argument the underlying truth is that creatorship is the only proof of divinity that is everywhere ostensible and forevermore reliable. He, and only He, who made all things is God. When you have settled the question, Who is God? you have settled it that all false gods, mere pretenders, arrayed of course in opposition to the true God, must perish. The great force of this verse lies in its being entirely free from anything offensive, and in its assuming nothing but what is essentially self-evident, at least so palpable and clear that no mind can rationally, soberly, call it in question. 12. In these varied forms the prophet affirms that the power and wisdom of Jehovah were the efficient cause in the creation of the universe, the earth and the heavenly bodies. In the middle clause, the Hebrew word rendered "world" usually means the inhabited world, the world considered as peopled. H. C.—It would seem that no one who believes in God as being the Author of both the astronomical heavens and the Bible can doubt that there is a subtle harmony between them in virtue of which they must, on the whole, be mutually helpful when normally used. We are in the habit of thinking that works of the same author will throw light on one another. Accordingly we believe that astronomy contains very great help, not only for people already religious in the way of illustrating, emphasizing and enlarging their faith, but also for those who are yet so unfortunate as to be unbelievers of the most radical type. Barr. 13. The thought throughout the passage is sublimely grand. Jehovah's hand is in all those wonderful changes which take place in the waters of our world, now gathered in the atmosphere above us as in a vast storehouse; then descending in rain to feed the springs and water the fields; then flowing away to fill the great lakes, gulfs, seas and oceans; then ascending in vapors to complete the circuit of incessant and forever beneficent change. H. C. 16. "The portion of Jacob" is the same as the God of Jacob; He who had taken upon Himself the guardianship and protection of that family. But He was distinguished from all the rest, who, as before observed, were falsehood and vanity all of them, having no other existence than as lifeless images, the work of deluded men; whereas He was the Creator of the universe, of all that exists; and, that there might be no room to mistake the Being intended, He is further characterized as He who made choice of Israel for the special object of His concern, had marked him out for His own possession, as with a measuring rod; and to whom the name of Jehovah belonged. Blayney.—It was the glory of Israel to be possessed, claimed and regarded by Jehovah as His own peculiar people. It would be everything toward the great object aimed at in these messages by Jeremiah if he could impress the people with these ideas, and thus show them the pre-eminent privileges and destinies open to the Hebrew race; the pre-eminent greatness and glory of the God they might have as their own portion, and so, the infinite folly of going after idols. H. C. Lord of Hosts. The significance of the doctrine of Jehovah Sabaoth consists in the fact that it teaches us to recognize not only the supermundane power and glory of the living God, but also makes Him known to us as interposing, according to His free and sovereign will, in the affairs of the world, and therefore not bound to the elements or forces of nature which obey Him; but as having, on the contrary, not only these, but also the spiritual powers of the heavenly world at His disposal for the execution of His will on earth. Hence this name not only expresses the contrast between Himself and a deification of the heavenly bodies, but also the general contrast between Himself and those heathen deities which are absorbed in nature and the world. Thus the contemplation of the Lord of the heavenly hosts is expanded to that of the Omnipotent Ruler of the Universe. (So. Ps. 24:10; Isa. 6:3; 51:15; 54:5; Amos 9:5, etc.) The chief passage, however, in this respect is Jer. 10:16 in its connection with verses 1-10. O. 19. In this and the following verses the prophet seems, by anticipation, to suggest motives of patience and consolation to his country, in regard to the evils that were coming upon her. These he puts into her own mouth, and makes her observe that her affliction, though great, was such as by experience she had found to be tolerable; that she had less reason to complain of what she suffered, as it was no other than might have been expected from the misconduct of those who had the direction of her affairs; and that she was not without hope in the mercy of God, who, upon the humble supplication of His people, might be moved to mitigate their chastisement, and turn His hand against the heathen that oppressed them. Blayney. 21. The religious teachers of the people had become utterly brutish, in the same sense in which idolaters had been shown to be brutish (verses 8, 14). They had gone into idolatry, and led the people after them. On their souls must rest the fearful guilt of ruining the nation! H. C. 23-25. Fruits of a chastened spirit. From what foul soil do the fairest flowers spring! Beautiful as they are, they are rooted in that which is altogether unbeautiful. The sweet perfume of many woods, seeds, flowers will not be given forth until they are gashed with the axe, or bruised, or crushed, or otherwise seemingly maltreated. We could not have the many-hued arch of the exquisitely tinted rainbow were it not for the drear, dark clouds and the descending rain. The most precious of the Psalms were wrung out of the heart of David when that heart was well-nigh borne down with grief. And here, in these verses, it is the chastened spirit of Judah, personified in the prophet who speaks, that utters itself in the lowly confession of the twenty-third verse, the holy submission of the prayer of the twenty-fourth verse and the settled hatred of them who hate God which burns in the twenty-fifth. Consider these fruits, and may God make them to abound in ourselves. P. C. 23. "O Lord, I know that man's way is not to himself," in the sense of being under his absolute control. Thy hand is everywhere and evermore supreme, shaping all destinies and even all the lesser subordinate acts and ways of mortals. This recognition of God's universal agency introduces a prayer that God would shape the issues of their destined captivity in His merciful providence. The people express their sense of conscious weakness, and cast themselves on the supreme agency and control of God. Probably this language is put into the mouth of the people by the prophet as adapted to meet their case, rather than as truly expressing their actual thought and prayer at this time. H. C. When life—as far as individual responsibility is concerned—really begins, how wise he proves to be who looks for the pointing of God's finger, and feels that he must follow it! The man who insists that he can make his own way only finds it perish at last. Because no way can be considered just as a way; whether it is pleasant or painful, easy or difficult, is not the great matter, but whither it leads, what lies at the end of it. As it would be foolish for a man to take charge of a ship ignorant of his destination and how to reach it, so it is equally foolish for a man to suppose that any way will do so long as it is as comfortable and easy as he can make it. Man's right way must be according to God's clear will; and it is the way of trust in Jesus, who is the Son and Christ of God. Note, further, the strong expression of individual assurance here given. "I know," says Jeremiah. He knew it indeed from his own experience. The way in which he now was, of prophet and witness for Jehovah, was not of his choosing. He did not think himself fit for it. And yet so far was he from being right in his own impressions as a young man, that it appears God had chosen him for a special purpose or ever his existence had begun. It is a great blessing to a man when, either from experience of his own wanderings or prudent observation of the wanderings of others, he can say in this matter, "I know." He spares himself much anxiety and shame who is humble enough to put himself under Divine guidance. God must establish man when he is in the right way. "It is not in man that walketh to make sure of his steps." In other words, though he may have begun the journey rightly, that is no proof that he will go on without hindrance or disaster to the end. In days when long journeys would have to be undertaken on foot, this expression with regard to the walking man would be very significant. The perils of such a journey were well known—perils from robbers; perils of losing one's way in the dark, and sometimes probably in the daylight; perils through trusting to strangers, who may deceive or insufficiently inform him; perils through sickness far from home and friends. And so in the great spiritual way there is needed humility all through. The way is made up of little steps, and a false step may not be possible to retrieve. Divine knowledge and Divine intimations must stand in the place of our experience. Faith in God's wisdom, which cannot fail, and in God's word, which cannot lie, must be our resource in all perplexity. There are times when common sense and right feeling are enough to guide our conduct, yet even these are more the gift of God than may at first appear. We cannot, then, be too minutely observant as to our need of Divine light and truth and assurance. Thus, being found in the right way and enduring to the end, we shall be safe. Y. By "the way of man" we mean surely more than that chain of occurrences which strikes the senses. There is an inner life, which, though unseen, is loftier, vaster and more eventful. The history of the man is the history of his immortal part. While men look on the panorama of sensible things—the poverty, the pleasures, the journeys, the expeditions, the wars, the disasters, the triumphs of our race—eyes are gazing upon us from the spiritual world, intent upon those great realities which escape us, in the pilgrimage of the spirit—the shade and texture of the reason; the dangers, and crosses, and wounds of the moral part; the new birth of the soul; the mysterious assaults of principalities and powers; the sublime conflict with evil; the armor, the triumph and the salvation. This is the way of man, and it is not in himself. J. W. A. 24-25. The prayer here is, first, that God would deal gently, tenderly with the people, that their ruin might not be utter and perpetual; and, secondly, that, upon the heathen who had rendered Him no worship, He would send His judgments more heavily and fearfully, because they had consumed Jacob, and led the people of the Lord away into a long and grievous captivity. In due time the Lord answered this prayer by His judgments on Babylon. This passage is sometimes quoted as if it referred to family prayer. Such reference can only be in the way of accommodation. H. C. 24. "O Lord, correct me, but," etc. This is a model prayer. It confesses wrong. It owns the need of correction. The man is no longer right in his own eyes. He is seen, like the publican, "standing afar off." It desires to be put right. (Cf. Ps. 51.) As there, so here, there is the longing for renewal, the clean heart, the right spirit. It deprecates not the correction, but the wrath of God. The man has a clear view of that wrath—its crushing, destroying power. It is good to have this. Without it there is the danger of our looking lightly upon our sin. It is a most instructive prayer. It teaches us: That all the corrections we have received have been fatherly ones—"in judgment," not "in anger." For had they been in anger we had not been here at all. That we are alive and in God's presence proves that the love of God, and not His anger, is ours still. For His anger would have "brought us to nothing." That there are corrections in anger. There have been such. Where are Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Rome? God brought them "to nothing." And there will be for all who harden themselves against God. That, seeing all need correction and will therefore receive it, either "in judgment" or "in anger," our wisdom is to make this prayer our own. One or other of these corrections we must have. Which shall it be? This prayer was answered for Israel. They have not been brought to nothing, and they were corrected. P. C. We cannot pray in faith that we may never be corrected while we are conscious to ourselves that we need it and deserve it, and know that as many as God loves He chastens. The great thing we should dread in affliction is the wrath of God. Say not, Lord, do not correct me; but, Lord, do not correct me in anger; for that will infuse wormwood and gall into the affliction and misery; that will bring us to nothing; we may bear the smart of His rod, but we cannot bear the weight of His wrath. 25. It is a prediction of God's judgments upon all the impenitent enemies of His Church and kingdom. See how the heathen are described, on whom God's fury shall be poured out. They are strangers to God, and are content to be so. They know Him not, nor desire to know Him. They are families that live without prayer, that have nothing of religion among them; they call not on God's name. Those that restrain prayer prove that they know not God; for they that know Him will seek to Him and entreat His favor. They are persecutors of the people of God, and are resolved to be so. H. Moral decay in the family is the invariable prelude to public corruption. It is a false distinction which we make between public integrity and private honor. The man whom you cannot admit into your family, whose morals are corrupt, cannot be a pure statesman. Whoever studies history will be profoundly convinced that a nation stands or falls with the sanctity of its domestic ties. Rome mixed with Greece and learned her morals. The Goth was at her gates; but she fell not until she was corrupted and tainted at the heart. The domestic corruption preceded the political. When there was no longer purity on her hearthstones nor integrity in her Senate, then and not till then her death-knell was rung. F. W. Robertson. 11:1, 2 THE word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and 3 say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man that heareth 4 not the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your 5 God: that I may establish the oath which I swore unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day. Then answered I, and said, Amen, O LORD. 6 And the LORD said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the 7 streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them. For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of 8 Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the stubbornness of their evil heart: therefore I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did them not. 9 And the LORD said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among 10 the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they are gone after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their 11 fathers. Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and they shall cry unto me, but I will not hearken unto them. 12 Then shall the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense; but they shall not save them at all in the time of their 13 trouble. For according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to the shameful thing, even 14 altars to burn incense unto Baal. Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. 15 What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, 16 and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest. The LORD called thy name, A green olive tree, fair with goodly fruit: with the noise of a great 17 tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken. For the LORD of hosts, that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have wrought for themselves in provoking me to anger by offering incense unto Baal. 18. And the LORD gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it; then thou shewedst me their 19 doings. But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter; and I knew not that they 20 had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered. 20 But O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see 21 thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause. Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying, Thou shalt not prophesy 22 in the name of the LORD, that thou die not by our hand: therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and 23 their daughters shall die by famine; and there shall be no remnant unto them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation. 12:1 Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet would I reason the cause with thee: wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they at 2 ease that deal very treacherously? Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root; they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their 3 reins. But thou, O LORD, knowest me; thou seest me, and triest mine heart toward thee: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter. 4 How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? for the wicked- ness of them that dwell therein, the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, 5 He shall not see our latter end. If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and though in a land of peace thou art 6 secure, yet how wilt thou do in the pride of Jordan? For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee; even they have cried aloud after thee: believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee. 7. I have forsaken mine house, I have cast off mine heritage; I have given the dearly be- 8 loved of my soul into the hand of her enemies. Mine heritage is become unto me as a lion 9 in the forest: she hath uttered her voice against me; therefore I have hated her. Is mine heritage unto me as a speckled bird of prey? are the birds of prey against her round about? 10 go ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, bring them to devour. Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleas- 11 ant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it a desolation; it mourneth unto me, 12 being desolate; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart. Spoil- ers are come upon all the bare heights in the wilderness: for the sword of the LORD devour- 13 eth from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh hath peace. They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns; they have put themselves to pain, and profit nothing: and ye shall be ashamed of your fruits, because of the fierce anger of the LORD. 14 Thus saith the LORD against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit: Behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, 15 and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them. And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them up, I will return and have compassion on them; and I will bring 16 them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land. And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, As the LORD liveth; even as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built up in the 17 midst of my people. But if they will not hear, then will I pluck up that nation, plucking up and destroying it, saith the LORD. Chaps. 11, 12. These chapters are closely connected, the persecution of the prophet by his fellow-townsmen and relatives of Anathoth constituting a connecting bond. (Cf. 11:19-23 with 12:6.) The message of chap. 11 appears without any date; but the points made in it, especially the conspiracy found in Judah and Jerusalem to apostatize from God, and the violent efforts upon the prophet's life, show that it must have been later than Josiah's reign, and, in all probability, soon after Jehoiakim's accession to the throne. Persecution against the prophet became virulent during this king's reign. (See Vol. VII., Sections 44-47.) H. C. 3. Cursed be the man that obeyeth not.** After the reading, the prophet appears to sum up the things contained in what was read to them; as if he had said, "Ye hear what the Lord saith unto you: remember, the sum of it is this—the man is cursed who obeyeth not; and he is blessed who obeys. From these declarations God will not depart." A. C. 5. Only those who are in communion with God can truly understand and approve His judgments. The commandment is intelligently alluded to, and its penalty stated. The correspondence of Judah's condition with that anticipated in the original passage is pregnantly suggested. All the more so that the transgressors did not feel or admit the correspondence. The prophet alone could say, "Amen;" but he said it emphatically and representatively. How many of God's people find a similar difficulty in acquiescing in His dispensations? They do not examine themselves, or their conscience is not sufficiently awakened, and consequently they fail to recognize His judgments and to profit by them as was intended. M. 6, 7. "Protesting" is a solemn form of attestation. The Hebrew word is used for witnessing, giving or taking testimony under solemn sanctions. So the Lord had announced to the people the terms of this covenant often and in methods of the greatest solemnity, all along from the day they came out of Egypt unto the time then present. The expression "rising early" is specially significant, and in our prophet quite frequent. (See 7:13; 25:3, 4; 35:15.) The command, "Proclaim these words, not only in the streets of Jerusalem, but in the cities of Judah," indicates the wide range of his mission and the solemn earnestness of this attempted reform. H. C. 11-17. This paragraph, which contains so much of God's wrath, might very well be expected to follow upon that which goes next before, which contained so much of His people's sin. When God found so much evil among them, we cannot think it strange if it follows, "Therefore I will bring evil upon them" (verse 11); the evil of punishment for the evil of sin; and there is no remedy, no relief; the decree is gone forth, and the sentence will be executed. H. 12. This gives us a vivid view of the extent of idolatry at this time—idol gods in every city throughout all the land and in every street of Jerusalem. Very concise and expressive is the original—"altars to that shame"—that shameful thing, Baal. H. C. 11-13. Idolatry confounded. Trouble is a touchstone for religious truth. The idolatry that is played with in prosperity is found to be useless in adversity. The Jews had regarded mere stocks and stones as their gods. But in the season of real distress they turn from these and cry to the true God to arise and save them. The ground of confidence which gives way in the hour of need is worse than useless; it is treacherous and ruinous, and the discovery of its true character confounds those who have relied on it. A religion which will not stand the test of trouble is a mockery. Trouble reveals the vanity of an insincere faith. In trouble we need the true, the real; all false religiousness, all playing at devotion, breaks down then. If our religion has been vain and ill founded, we are then discovered and made to be ashamed, "like a thief when he is found" (chap. 2:26). There is a deep instinct which cries out for the true God in the hour of distress. Old memories then revive, scouted faiths reassert themselves, the first cry of the child to his Parent breaks out again involuntarily, and the godless man in his agony groans, "O my God!" If we have forsaken God in prosperity we have no right to expect Him to save us in adversity. The religion which we accept in our general life is that to which we should justly look in our hours of need. Here is the natural irony of religion. A man is punished by being left to the protection of the creed of his own choice. It must always be remembered, indeed, that whenever we truly repent and seek God spiritually He will receive and save us (Hos. 6:1). But the mere cry for God's help in distress is not repentance, nor is it a spiritual return to God. It is a selfish utterance, and may be made while the heart is still far from God, and the sins which drove us from Him still unrepented of. It would be neither just nor good for us that God should respond to so degraded and unspiritual a prayer. P. C. 14. Jeremiah's prayer shall not help them; what God had said to him before (chap. 7:16) He here says again: "Pray not thou for this people." This is not designed for a command to the prophet so much as for a threatening to the people, that they should have no benefit by the prayers of their friends for them. H.—When judgment continues to rest upon the transgressor, it is not mere vengeance which is represented, but mercy working on the lines of severity. It is God's emphasis upon His commandment which must be heeded. The blessing that is latent in it waits the appearance of a repentance not to be repented of. Like pent-up waters, it will flow in an overwhelming stream when once the barriers of law have been removed by the sinner's return to God. M. 15. Nothing could be more offensive to God than to see His people polluting His temple with their idol altars and idol worship, thinking to atone for the wickedness of their idolatry by bringing it into God's Temple and for the immorality of their life by keeping up some of the Mosaic ritual services. It was enough to seal their doom that they found their chief joy in doing wickedness. H. C. 16. The Lord called thy name, A green olive tree.** Paul plainly alludes to this verse (Rom. 11 : 17). The Jewish nation in its flourishing state is sometimes compared to a vine, sometimes to an olive tree, chiefly because of the fruits of good works which God might justly expect from them, after all the care and pains He had bestowed upon them to make them thrive and fructify. W. Lowth. 16, 17. The fated olive tree. God's comparison of His people to the olive tree. There would have been force in the comparison if applied to any flourishing and fruitful tree, but there was peculiar propriety in directing the thoughts of the people to the olive. The olive was already associated in sacred history with the return of hope after the flood, and doubtless, in the time of Jeremiah, it was one of the most valuable of trees, as it still is, for the richness of its produce and the variety of ways in which that produce meets the common wants of men. The extensive olive groves, composed of trees that reach no great height, and unattractive to a mere casual glance, were yet more to the people than all the cedars of Lebanon. And as the people were led to consider these olive trees, full of vigor, abounding in blossoms, many of which never came to fruit, and yet, after all, left abundance of fruit behind; as they recollected all the use of the olive—for food, for light, for anointing, for soap-making—the thoughtful among them would feel that God could have employed no better figure to suggest how full Israel was of productivity of the most practical sort. The destruction of this olive tree. All the wealth that came from this olive tree was being used for bad purposes. The fatness of the soil went into the olive, but the fatness of the olive did not come back to God in grateful and proportionate service. Nay, rather, it was used against Him; and the harm it did was to some extent measurable by the good it might have done. The axe is laid not only at the root of the tree that brings forth no fruit, but also at the root of the tree that brings forth its fruit to be used in hostility against Him who planted the tree. Y. 18. The passage (verses 18–23) treats of a new subject, and enters upon it abruptly, as men are wont to speak or write when excited by a sense of danger, and of merciful deliverance. While the prophet was living quietly in his native Anathoth, suspecting no danger, all suddenly the Lord reveals to him that his fellow-citizens there, and even some of his relatives (12 : 6), were plotting his murder. With these facts before us, the sense will be plain. Literally, "The Lord caused me to know, and then I knew; then He made me see their doings." H. C. 19. We cannot wonder that many of the fathers saw in Jeremiah a type of Christ. His bodily and mental agonies; his entire subjection to the will of God, though the prophet had to overpower the revoltings of his human will; his lamentations over the coming troubles of his country, the general opposition to his teaching and the union of priest and people in seeking his death—all form an interesting parallel; and the idea was naturally suggested by his describing himself as "a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter." No doubt he was emphatically "a man of sorrows." But the comparison must not be pressed too far. Still, this we may say, that of all the prophets, none rises to a higher or more spiritual elevation than Jeremiah, and none is more worthy of such a comparison; and yet even more true would it be to say that he is an exemplification of the Gospel principle that "God's grace is sufficient" for a man, because God's "strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12 : 9). R. P. S. 20. The Hebrew is not necessarily a prayer, a malediction. It is the simple future, "I shall see;" I am sure of it, because I have laid open my case before Thee [my God], and so have committed it to thee. The committal is the thing implied. The laying open to God is all that the verb legitimately expresses. But, in such a case, the laying open before God is the preliminary act, and implies the committal. The fact that the Lord had specially apprised him of his danger might well be taken as a guarantee that he would also take care to deal righteously with those wicked persecutors. 21–23. And here the Lord assures His prophet, and directs him to write it out for a warning to other persecutors, that He would terribly punish and utterly exterminate those wicked men of Anathoth who had sought to seal his lips, that he should not speak truthfully the word of the Lord. Chap. 12. The first six verses treat of one subject, analogous to that of the next preceding passage (11 : 18-23), only that this passage (12 : 1-6) seems to touch the history of which both treat at a point somewhat earlier than that. For this represents the prophet as troubled by the prosperity of the wicked (verses 1, 2), as annoyed by their wickedness, and, perhaps, by their opposition to him as the Lord's prophet, and still as not having yet seen the worst, and especially as not yet aware that his own brethren and nearest relatives are plotting his destruction (verses 5, 6). The former passage (11 : 18-23), as we have seen, touches the history at a point further on, where the Lord reveals to him the treachery of his friends, puts him in a way to escape their plot, and announces their doom of utter destruction. The rest of the chapter (verses 7-17) seems to have no special connection with the first six verses. H. C. 1-4. Moral difficulties with the providence of God.** The tone of this address to Jehovah is strikingly contrasted with that to the men of Anathoth. To them he is as a lion or a brazen wall. To Jehovah he is as a fretful child, ignorant, wilful, perverse, and requiring to be corrected. The tone of the prophet's prayer appears reasonable, considering the character and position of those to whom he refers. And there is a recognition of the righteousness of God to begin with. It is evident, too, that the conscience of the prophet is without offence in the sight of God, and yet there can be no doubt that the language he adopts is not to be justified. He is carried away by excess of zeal, but it is zeal without knowledge, and he himself will be the first bitterly to regret his presumption. It is a perilous thing for any man to attempt to judge his fellows by infallible standards. One thing in the behavior of the prophet was to be commended. He did not conceal these thoughts within himself. He says, "Let me talk with Thee," conscious that in this openness of soul lay his moral safety. A few minutes' honest communion with God will tap many a festering sore and correct many a subtle error of spirit and life. The last lesson of Divine revelation is not severity, but love. M. Jeremiah sees the difficulty, but it does not drive him from faith in the justice of God. Religion makes constant demands on faith—the personal faith of trust in the character of God where appearances are against what we believe that character to be. Confidence in the unwavering righteousness of God will help us to look for certain indications of a solution of the difficulty occasioned by the prosperity of the wicked. Right must and will be done, and if it is not yet accomplished it will be ultimately. From the character of God we may thus reason to His certain action (Gen. 18 : 25). Hence we have an argument in favor of future rectification. Jeremiah expects it to come even in this life, though it is long deferred (verse 3). The Christian looks for it in the great judgment, and the fruits of this in the life to come. The difficulty may be lessened even for the present by the reflection that material prosperity is not real prosperity. It may be well for a good man to suffer. Prosperity may be an evil. True welfare consists not in success, not in security from calamity, but in inward peace, in progress in the Divine life. Adency. 2. Grow, bring forth fruit.** There is in this world a perpetual progress of character. God must interpose violently to prevent this principle in the nature of things, to prevent this law of a moral being from being accomplished. Everything, both good and evil, hastens to its perfection. In depravity there is no standing still, no amelioration, no change, as to the pith of the character and destiny, but a constant, ceaseless approximation, amid all apparent forms and changes, to the one final result. There is everlasting growth. Evil cannot stop any more than good can stop. A depraved being goes on to the perfection of his character by just as sure a law, and with just as certain a progress as a good being to the perfection of his. It cannot be otherwise. Cheever. Personal religion involves growth in grace; so that where there is no growth, although there may be interest in religious subjects, and keenness about controversies, and a perception of the importance of Divine truth, and a warm defence of orthodoxy, there personal religion is unknown. To say that personal religion is characterized by growth is only another form of saying that the man who has it is spiritually alive. There is no organic life without growth in nature; and there is no spiritual life without growth in grace, no continuous state of life. The question whether any of us has personal religion resolves itself into a question whether he has in him a principle of spiritual growth; and spiritual growth implies spiritual life. E. M. G. Christian steadfastness means, at bottom, the augmenting supremacy of the personal Christ in the soul; growing convictions of His supreme worth, deepening attachment to His person, enlarging drafts upon his Spirit for vitality, progressive enfranchisement from set rule and form that bind the flesh: "For me to live is Christ." "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." We are sons not of the bondwoman, but of the free, having a career before us, a destiny to work at which transcends the boundaries of fleshly virtues and rises into the dignity of free and conscious sonship with God. The Christian impulse must organize into Christian living and growth, or it will either evaporate or degenerate into mechanical conformity to a man-made code, a mere slavery to form and rule, while the devil holds the whip, drives Christ out of our lives and leaves us hollow shapes of pretentious godliness, a ghastly mockery of true righteousness. W. W. Furis. 3. He appeals to God: "Thou knowest my heart toward Thee." We are as our hearts are, and our hearts are good or bad, according as they are or are not toward God; and this is that therefore concerning which we should examine ourselves, that we may approve ourselves to God. The cognizance to which he appeals: "Thou knowest me better than I know myself, not by hearsay or report, for Thou hast seen me not with a transient glance, but Thou hast tried my heart." God's knowing of us is as clear and exact and certain as if He had made the most strict scrutiny. The God with whom we have to do perfectly knows how our hearts are toward Him. He knows both the guile of the hypocrite and the sincerity of the upright. H. 4. Because they said, He shall not see our last end.** That is, He will not concern Himself about rewarding or punishing us hereafter. The inference which bad men are apt to draw from God's past forbearance is, that He is totally regardless of the moral conduct of mankind. Hence, promising themselves the same impunity in future which they have hitherto experienced, they are led to a free indulgence of all their vicious inclinations. Accordingly the Psalmist, complaining, as the prophet does here, of the prosperity of the wicked, represents their behavior and their principles in terms exactly similar. (See Ps. 94: 5, 6, 7.) Blayney. 5. The close connection of verse 6 with this verse 5 requires us to interpret this as spoken to the prophet, and as implying that greater toils and conflicts await him, and therefore it is not well for him to faint under these of lesser severity. He has already encountered some persecution; much more and worse is near at hand. H. C.—If the injuries done him by the men of Anathoth made such an impression upon him, what would he do when the princes and chief priests at Jerusalem should set upon him with their power, as they did afterward (chaps. 20: 2; 32: 2). H. The expressions are proverbial, but clear and forcible. If in a race with footmen he found himself wearied, how could he stand a race with horses? If in a quiet, peaceful land, where he had no reason to fear dangerous animals, he was in terror, how would he do along the thickets of Jordan, where the lions had their lairs? This phrase translated "the swelling of Jordan" occurs elsewhere in this prophet (49: 19; 50: 44); also in Zech. 11: 3). In Jeremiah it is uniformly rendered as here, but in Zechariah, "the pride of Jordan." In each of these three passages it is thought of as the place where lions had their coverts. Hence, the phrase cannot refer to the rise of the waters of the Jordan, but must refer to the thickets and shrubbery which might be considered the pride and glory of Jordan. The original word means that which is high, excellent, distinguished. The connection of verse 5 with what precedes may seem abrupt. It is rather thought than expressed. The tone of the prophet's remarks throughout verses 1-4 reveals a mind much exercised with the wickedness of men who were probably thought of by him as his personal enemies and persecutors. The Lord proceeds here somewhat abruptly to apprise him that worse enemies and sterner conflicts await him. H. C. The prophet of God was weary-hearted. Like Job, like the writer of the thirty-seventh psalm, like John the Baptist, he was sore perplexed at God's dealings. The wicked prospered, the righteous were cast down. Hence he sadly asks, "Wherefore doth?" etc. (verse 1). Now, God answers such questionings as these in different ways. Sometimes by showing His servant the true state of the ungodly, making him "to understand their end." Sometimes by revealing to the righteous the vast superiority of their portion over that of the ungodly. Sometimes by gently soothing the ruffled spirit. At other times, as here, by rousing rebuke and sharp remonstrance, bidding him bethink himself, if he broke down under these comparatively small trials, how would he bear up when much more terrible ones had to be endured? If running with "footmen" was too much for him, then how would he "contend" with the swift "horses"? If he could feel secure only in a quiet land, how would he do in a region full of peril like that of the jungle-land, the lair of the lion and other fierce beasts of prey, which stretched along the banks of the Jordan? Greater trials were to come to him than he had as yet known; how would he meet them if he failed in the presence of these lesser ones? C. God has chosen to let the great and learned sometimes fall, to show us what is in man; and to hold up the timid woman and the feeble child, to show us what is in God. But what preparation have we for trials, losses, fears, pains, bereavements and death? If we can ill bear the daily crosses of life, and are easily affrighted by the sneers or the inconveniences that befall us; if amid these days of easy and honorable Christianity we find it so hard to be Christians, how will it be when we come into the billows of mighty conflict? J. W. A. Holy habits of living store away reserves of strength which make one secure from the pressure of life's trials. One whose daily life is careless is always weak. But one who habitually serves God and walks in the paths of uprightness and obedience grows strong in the fountains of His being. Exercise develops all the powers of life. Doing good continually adds to one's capacity for doing good. Victory in temptation puts new fibre into the victor's arm. Thus he who forms habits of well-doing is continually piling away in his soul reserves of strength by which he will be ready to meet the sudden shocks of danger or trial or the unexpected demands of duty. J. R. M. 6. The general sentiment of this verse is, that his own brothers of the same father and family were dealing treacherously with him, speaking fair words, but plotting foulest deeds. This would be the severest of all his trials, corresponding to the race with horses or to meeting the lions that spring forth from the thickets on the Jordan. H. C. 7-17. God expressly challenges the national calamities as the result of His own special determination and judgment. He had discarded His people for their malicious behavior toward Him, and they were therefore given up to the outrage and devastation of fierce and merciless invaders (verses 7-13). At last He promises them a restoration in future, and threatens punishment upon their heathen neighbors who had oppressed them; but with this reservation, that such of these as would come over to His established worship, He would receive and incorporate into His Church; but the unbelieving part should be utterly extirpated. Blayney. 14-17. The prophets sometimes, in God's name, delivered messages both of judgment and mercy to the nations that bordered on the land of Israel; but here is a message to them all in general, who had in their turns been one way or other injurious to God's people, had either oppressed them or triumphed in their being oppressed. H. Mercy and judgment. In these verses we have one of the "larger words" which make the whole world's testament of salvation and life. The threatenings are stern, and will be executed to the letter; but the promises seem to transcend the immediate occasion. A gate of hope and redemption was herein opened to multitudes who at that date were not included in the covenant of Israel. The conditions upon which their possible comprehension within the future Israel is based are moral and spiritual, and therefore truly universal. M. The tide that has no ebb, but ever flows. Such is the grace of God. The tide has never gone back; it has been but delayed. Wise and holy fatherly love is at the root of all things, and is the key which unlocks, as none else will, all the problems of life. That love held His people down to the sufferings they had to endure until the evil mind departed from them, and so it holds humanity down and individual souls down to what they have to endure until they be changed in the spirit of their minds. But all this while the tide of His gracious purpose is rising, and soon that which hinders shall be taken out of the way. Judah was to go into captivity, but Judah was to be "plucked out" from thence, and that is but a pattern of God's dealings with us all. But not only has this tide no ebb, it flows on evermore. Not only was Judah to be restored, but forgiveness and salvation are offered to her "evil neighbors" (verse 14), who had done her harm. God's purpose in the election of some is not the reprobation of the rest, but the salvation of all. "In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." The "evil neighbors" had corrupted Judah (verse 16), and they had persecuted her (verse 14); but now the set time to favor them also had come, and salvation is offered to them (verse 16). Thus the tide of God's grace flows on evermore, and where it seemed as if it would never come. From all which we may learn: The redemption of the world is the purpose of God. But every nation and people in their own order. The elect are the first-fruits; those nearest to them come next. If any refuse, their national life is lost (verse 17). But the unfaithfulness of man shall not make the faith of God of none effect. Let us take this tide at its flood; it will lead us on to life eternal. It is the "tide in the affairs of men" which calls us to launch forth upon it, that it may bear us to never-ending bliss. C. 13:1 Thus said the LORD unto me, Go, and buy thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy 2 loins, and put it not in water. So I bought a girdle according to the word of the LORD, and 3 put it upon my loins. And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, 4 Take the girdle that thou hast bought, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, 5 and hide it there in a hole of the rock. So I went, and hid it by Euphrates, as the LORD 6 commanded me. And it came to pass after many days, that the LORD said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there. 7 Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid 8 it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing. Then the word of the 9 LORD came unto me, saying, Thus saith the LORD, After this manner will I mar the pride of 10 Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and are gone after other gods to serve them, and 11 to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is profitable for nothing. For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a 12 name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear. Therefore thou shalt speak unto them this word: Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and they shall say unto thee, Do we not know that every bottle shall be 13 filled with wine? Then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David's throne, and the priests, 14 and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them. 15, 16 Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the LORD hath spoken. Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains; and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it 17 gross darkness. But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride; and mine eyes shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the LORD's flock is taken cap- 18 tive. Say thou unto the king and to the queen-mother, Humble yourselves, sit down: for 19 your headtires are come down, even the crown of your glory. The cities of the South are shut up, and there is none to open them: Judah is carried away captive all of it; it is wholly carried away captive. 20 Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north: where is the flock that was 21 given thee, thy beautiful flock? What wilt thou say, when he shall set thy friends over thee as head, seeing thou thyself hast instructed them against thee? shall not sorrows take hold 22 of thee, as of a woman in travail? And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore are these things come upon me? for the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy 23 heels suffer violence. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then 24 may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. Therefore will I scatter them, as the 25 stubble that passeth away, by the wind of the wilderness. This is thy lot, the portion meas- ured unto thee from me, saith the LORD: because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in 26 falsehood. Therefore will I also discover thy skirts upon thy face, and thy shame shall 27 appear. I have seen thine abominations, even thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewd- ness of thy whoredom, on the hills in the field. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! thou wilt not be made clean; how long shall it yet be? Chap. 13. This chapter is obviously one entire message. It appears here without date. The allusions to the deep infatuation that pre- cedes destruction (verse 13); to the destruction itself (verses 14, 16); to the humiliation of the king and queen (verse 18); to being carried cap- tive (verses 17, 19)—all conspire to point to the short reign of Jehoiachin as the most probable date. (Cf. 2 K. 24:10-16.) The prominence given to the king's mother in both this history (2 K. 24 : 15) and this prophecy (verse 18) favors this date. The prophecy points significantly to pride as the fundamental sin of the people. To mar this pride was the thing specially signified by this “rotten girdle.” Over this pride the prophet would weep sore, as the procuring cause of their ruin (verse 17). It was this that hardened their heart against the efforts made by the Lord, through His prophet, to dissuade them from idolatry, and draw them back to true piety. H. C. This chapter contains a single and distinct prophecy, which, under two symbols, a linen girdle left to rot, and all vessels being filled with wine, foretells the utter destruction that was destined to fall upon the whole Jewish nation, including individuals of every rank and denomination (verses 15–21); and the cause of all the evils is assigned in the general corruption and profligacy of manners that prevailed without a prospect of amendment (verse 22 to the end). The particular mention of the joint downfall of the king and queen (verse 18) seems to justify the opinion which ascribes this prophecy to the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, whose fate with that of his queen is, in like manner, noticed together. Blayney. 1–7. This statement is entirely plain. The great question discussed among critics is, whether this was a mere vision or a fact of actual life. I accept it is a fact, because it is affirmed to be a fact in most explicit terms; because mere visions are never put in such terms, but in terms of a very different sort—e.g., “I saw;” “the Lord showed me;” “I was in the Spirit and saw,” etc.; also because analogous cases in this prophet must be taken as actual facts—e.g., the breaking of a potter’s vessel in Tophet (19 : 1–10), and the making of symbolic yokes (27 : 2 and 28 : 10). H. C. 1. Put it not in water. God explains, at verse 11, what was meant by the symbol of the girdle or sash worn about the loins—viz., His people Israel, whom He purchased and redeemed of old, and attached to Himself by a special covenant; that as a girdle serveth for an ornament to the wearer, so they should be subservient to the honor and glory of His name. But, it is added, “they would not hear” or conform to His intentions; therefore being polluted with the guilt of their disobedience, they were in that state, and on that very account, to be carried into captivity; conformably to which the prophet was directed “not to put the girdle in water”—that is, not to wash it, but to leave it in that filthiness which it had contracted in wearing. Blayney. 7. It is expressly said, He did as the Lord commanded him, and thus gave a signal proof of his obedience, to shame the stubbornness of a disobedient people; the toil of his journey would be very proper to signify both the pains they took to corrupt themselves with their idolatries, and the sad fatigue of their captivity; and Euphrates being the river of Babylon, which was to be the place of their bondage, was a material circumstance in this sign. H. 8–11. In these verses the Lord gives the explanation of the symbolic act. It represented the fact that He would mar the pride of Judah, and hinted at the agencies He would employ for this purpose—e.g., sending them into captivity to the Euphrates. As a man puts on a girdle to bind his otherwise loose garments close to his person, so the Lord had put on His chosen people and bound them to Himself, and would joyfully have held them in this relation if they had honored and loved Him; but they would not. Hence, He had no alternative left Him but to tear off this girdle and hide it away by the Euphrates, till, humbled under their affliction, they should lie low before Him and plead for mercy. The phraseology (verse 11) shows vividly how much the Lord would have honored His people before the world with prosperity, and would have counted their prosperity an honor and a praise to Himself, if they had adhered to Him in fidelity, love and obedience. No blessings are too great for God to give to His willing, trustful people, provided only they are so humble that He can bless them safely, and so dutiful that He can bless them with honor to Himself. 12. All the people of the land, their king, princes, corrupt priests and false prophets especially, must be filled with drunkenness in the moral sense of mad infatuation. The main point of the verse, however, is to bring out the insulting retort of the people: Could not you tell us something that we do not already know? 13,14. This use of the idea of drunkenness to represent the analogous infatuation that both naturally and judicially precedes destruction occurs very frequently in the prophets, drawn out most fully by Jeremiah (chap. 25), but appearing in Isa. 51 : 17–21; 63 : 6 and often in the minor prophets. It is, indeed, a terrible fact in the providential government of God over nations, and sometimes over individuals as well, that when they scorn His wisdom and scoff at His word, He turns their wisest counsels into foolishness, gives up their heart to madness, and so lets them rush and reel on to the drunkard’s doom. 14. The last clause reads literally, "will not have mercy so as not to destroy"—i.e., the cherished mercy and kindness of His nature shall not prevent His destroying them—a startling truth, which heaven-defiant sinners, who rest their vain hope in the assumed mercy of God, would do well to heed. H. C. 15. "Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud." Why should human beings be proud, seeing that all their clothing is second-hand, worn first by the lower animals before it is worn by them? The silken robe of a king's daughter was woven by a worm, and the ermine that adorns the mantle of the noblest office originally protected an insignificant weasel from the cold. It is not the outward dress made by other creatures that dignifies the life, but that which truly belongs to the man himself—the inward clothing which he has formed by his own pure thoughts and lofty ideals, the habit of a saintly life. The cloak brought from fairyland in King Arthur's court was a gift for the purest and fairest; and it is this cloak which expresses the inward nature, and is in harmony with it, that is of any value. The robe of Chosroes, made of cloth of gold and adorned with jewels of inestimable value, covered a base and despicable nature. The sheepskins and goatskins in which the early Christian confessors wandered about, destitute, afflicted, tormented, covered the noblest natures, of whom the world was not worthy. And Christ Himself wears the same robe in which His people imbibe His spirit and imitate His example. Macmillan. Pride is a false estimate of one's self. It lives "on the petty pre-eminences which here for a little lift one mortal an inch or two higher than another—an extra handful of gold, a better education, a longer pedigree, a title, a serener and less tempted life," or official distinctions. But pride dies where "self-respect is born," since self-respect teaches one to rightly estimate one's self; to look on the inherent value of one's immortal nature, on the soul's immeasurable capacities, intellectual and moral, and on its relations to its Creator and Redeemer. It does not value itself on the magnitude of its merits, but because of its delightful and honorable relations to the Lord of the universe. It places its possessor in the balances of the sanctuary, weighing himself not by weights of human invention, but by those which bear the stamp of the court of heaven. And such self-respect is near akin to humility, since it perceives then no man's worth is self-derived, but is all the gift of Him whose name is love. Dykes. Truth provokes those whom it does not enlighten and convert. The proud man cannot bear to be told that God owes him nothing; and hereby he renders himself still more unworthy of His grace; he rises up against His Physician, instead of turning his anger against his pride and desiring the cure of it. Quesnel. 15, 16. The Lord hath spoken. Should not mortal man bend his ear to listen when God deigns to speak? Shall he suffer his pride to be his ruin, as if it were beneath his dignity to hear his Maker? "Give glory to the Lord your God," by humbling yourselves before Him, by fully acknowledging His justice and His right to reign and by deeply repenting of your sins against Him. All this and more must be implied in giving glory to the Lord your God. A case in point, for illustration, occurs in the words of Joshua to Achan: "I pray thee, my son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him" (Josh. 7: 19). On the vital question of right and wrong between the sinner and God, the sinner gives due glory to God only when he humbles himself and confesses that the wrong is wholly on his side, the right wholly with God. The Lord enforces this appeal through His prophet by implying that a short time only remains ere, otherwise, judgment without mercy must be their doom. Hasten, "before He cause darkness," in the sense of deeper calamity; "before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains"—lost wanderers through unknown mountain forests, daylight all gone, where pitfalls and precipices lie in wait, and there can be but a step between you and death. "And while ye look for light"—in vain hope, anticipating the break of day or some rift in the thick clouds that close in heavily on your path—God shall turn your darkness of night and of cloud into the darkness of death-shade, and make it utter blackness of darkness. This graphic picture of misery and woe coming on the proud sinners of His time had its eye upon that fearful war just then impending, with its fatal results. H. C. 16. Light and the day are here as elsewhere the emblems of those Divine influences which ensure safety, joy and life; darkness and the night, the absence of those influences, betokening peril, misery and death. The dark mountains, with their chasm-filled passes, represent the paths of the world, with its concealed and perilous abysses, in which the sinful soul is wandering. They are the places of temptation and danger, from which God's presence is banished and in which there are chasms, into which the soul is liable to fall and perish. And it is these places, with which the world is filled, and through which the godless are groping in sin-blinded darkness looking for light—these places of peril that the prophet declares God will suddenly convert into the shadow of death by overturning the foot of the wanderer, and make a perpetual gross darkness by precipitating his fall into their dark and profound abysses. Under this effective figure is shadowed forth a momentous fact as a powerful inducement for the sinful soul at once to give glory to God by repentance and a return to the way of holiness—the fact of its momentary liability to fall into the fathomless depths and darkness of the second death. B. When, overwhelmed with a sense of corruption, I see before me “dark mountains” of trouble and the terrors of the grave, the eye of infinite goodness, brighter than the Shekinah of old, glances upon me from the depths of eternity. It is the smile of the King Immortal from the throne of grace. I see in it free love, the infinite merits of Christ, riches of mercy and of grace, which compel me to look with amaze. I am made to listen to the still, small voice that follows—a voice such as Elijah heard. It announces to me the mysteries of the holy of holies. “Lo, I come, in the volume of the Book it is written of Me.” “I came to seek and to save that which is lost.” I rise from the depths of despair, and no longer “stumble upon the dark mountains.” C. Evans. Let the beams of the Divine character be shed on the unholy mind, and its darkness would not only not comprehend, it would repel, that brightness; it would recoil from such a contrast to its own nature. But to come into immediate contact with a holy God, this must be, to those who love darkness, insufferable pain, in proportion to the fulness of that light! On the contrary, those who love holiness, those who war against sin, those who have repented a thousand times of the evil that dwells within them, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, to them holiness must be heaven; they will then reach the goal, rest in the haven where they would be, and, like the Psalmist who speaks their mind, “be satisfied when they awake in the likeness of God, and behold His face in righteousness!” R. Hall. 17. The spirit of this affectionate prophet stands before us here in exquisite beauty. He longed to have the people hear, but he could not compel them. All he could do to induce them he would most cheerfully and gladly. But if his best endeavors fail, there is one resort left him; he can find some secret place to weep over their guilty pride. He understands full well the form which this ruin will assume; “the Lord’s flock carried away captive.” This public statement to the people, backed up, we must suppose, by his known character for a tender spirit and a tearful eye, was in place here as one hopeful means of making an impression upon the people. It was a testimony to his honest belief in their danger, and to the solicitude and even anguish of his heart in view of their certain ruin unless they should repent. H. C. 20. The Church of God is His flock, His “beautiful flock.” Its members are very dear to Him, “purchased with His own blood.” The Church is given, entrusted, to pastors. When Christ ascended up on high He gave some “pastors.” This method of ordering His Church is the one He has willed. His blessing has evidently rested on it. What does not the Church of God owe to her faithful pastors? But whatever their character they cannot but have great influence. They are trusted by the people. They have received special gifts for their work in the form of mental and moral endowments. They are much prayed for. They are specially set apart for the charge of the Church of God. They have every inducement to fidelity. Faithful, the love of their charge will gather round them; the fear of God will dwell within them; the crown of life awaits them. And these mighty motives, acting upon hearts already prepared by God’s grace and devoted to this high office, have for the most part secured a great degree of fidelity in it. But there has been at times great unfaithfulness. The Church has suffered in numbers, in purity of doctrine, in consistency of life, in spirituality of character. And if it has been through the negligence and unfaithfulness of the pastor, who shall deliver him from the charge of blood-guiltiness which will lie at his door? What will he answer when the question is addressed to him, as one day it surely will be, “Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?” C. Christ has made over to each of us a special portion of His vineyard, to cultivate for immortality. For that definite allotment, and for every soul therein, we shall have to answer in the day of wrath. Those are awful words of the prophet: “Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock? What wilt thou say when He shall visit upon thee?” Hundreds, yea, thousands, have passed through the hands of some of us; what report of our ministry have they brought into the world of spirits? Oh, brethren! of a truth they are no slight matters, these souls of men with which we have to deal! Eternal destinies are suspended on our hourly work; every forgetful day is a robbery of Him whose chief reward for all "the travail of His soul" is in the multitude what we are to train for Him to glory. Shall we disappoint Him, and, as far as in us lies, neutralize the redeeming work of the cross? Called to be the stewards of His household, shall we lay waste His inheritance, or what is as criminal, suffer it to lie fallow and unproductive? He has promised us His unfailing help in prosecuting the work He began; He has promised us a glory eminent above others even in a world where all is glory—"rulers over many cities," "the joy of our Lord," "the brightness of the stars forever and ever." May we daily see before us the crown, and willingly bear the cross we call upon others to carry! May we keep before our thoughts that great and final day of visitation, more awful far than all these its earthly images; "when the Chief Shepherd shall appear," even the "Shepherd and Bishop of our souls," to inspect the accounts of our stewardship, to scrutinize our fidelity, to require the blood of the unwarned sinner at the hand of the faithless watchman, to recompense with rest everlasting the humble and laborious minister of truth and peace! Archer Butler. It will be seen that this was a question for flocks as well as for shepherds. Rulers are responsible for right leading, but subjects and followers are not altogether as sheep, that they should blindly follow those in formal authority. Truth has not been put within the formal shepherd's exclusive protection. We must take care whom we follow. It is a delusion to suppose that we can hand ourselves over spiritually to the guidance of any one less than Christ. Others may help and suggest; only He can command. Paul came to his hearers with arguments and persuasions, laying before them the truth, which they were able to receive because it was the truth, not because the authority of the speaker made it true. All New Testament preaching goes on the assumption that every one can be fully persuaded in his own mind. The same Scriptures are open to reader as to preacher. None can have their eternal interests perilled except by their own negligence. Y. 21. The idea is, that they had accepted the gods of those foreign nations, and had thus brought themselves into relations of acknowledged inferiority and subjection, so that now they could in no wise complain if the Lord put the princes of those nations in power over their whole land. When they should come to experience this natural result of their idolatry, would not the pangs of travail seize upon them? 23. The stubbornness of their hearts; the strength and persistence of this spirit of idolatry; the extreme difficulty of effecting a moral change, and the entire failure of all efforts thus far made to reclaim the people—are tersely expressed by this analogy. H. C. Then may ye also do good, etc. The meaning of this is, that they who are accustomed to do evil will find the work of repentance and reformation to be not indeed impossible, but extremely difficult. That the words are to be thus understood appears from the whole chapter, which contains terrible denunciations against the Jews of evils which should come upon them for their impiety. These threats are mixed with exhortations to repentance, and then follow the words, "Can the Ethiopian," etc., which must not, therefore, be taken as a declaration that they could not possibly repent; for then the prophet ought not to have pressed them, in the same discourse, to amend their ways, and to give glory to the Lord, before He caused darkness, and before their feet stumbled, and they should fall to rise no more. Jortin. To cease to do evil we have not only to stay the hand, but to purify the heart. To cease to do evil we must cease to think it, to feel it and to conceive it. So helpless is the sinner when he stands face to face with the problem of reformation. Effort after effort is made and fails. It is bound to fail because the source of the wrong-doing has not been rectified. To change himself—who is capable of this feat? M. Men habituate themselves to sin. Habit is second nature. The sin which is wilfully chosen becomes a tyrannous habit. We are coloring our very being by the tone of our thoughts and actions. What we do to-day, that we will be to-morrow. We are the result of our own past deeds. He who speaks or acts a lie becomes a liar; he who indulges in impurity becomes an unclean being; he who follows selfish impulses becomes a creature of selfishness. Thus every man is building up a habitation for his soul by his own deeds. P. C. Active habits are formed by the repetition of voluntary acts. It is an ultimate fact in our constitution, that repetition, practice, use, produces always facility in doing the acts repeated, and sometimes, in addition, a tendency to do them. M. H.—From our very faculty of habits, passive impressions, by being repeated, grow weaker. Thoughts, by often passing through the mind, are felt less sensibly; being accustomed to danger begets intrepidity—that is, lessens fear; to distress lessens the passion of pity; to instances of others' mortality lessens the sensible apprehension of our own. And from these two observations together—that practical habits are formed and strengthened by repeated acts, and that passive impressions grow weaker by being repeated upon us—it must follow that active habits may be gradually forming and strengthening by a course of acting upon such and such motives and excitements, while these motives and excitements themselves are by proportionable degrees growing less sensible—that is, are continually less and less sensibly felt, even as the active habits strengthen. Bp. Butler. Love increases the power of loving, just by continuance in loving. Hate grows malignantly venomous before one knows how much his better nature is overcome; so that, at the last moment, a wicked man discovers he is not under his own control. What he likes, he must continue to like; what he dislikes, he must continue to dislike. To will is present with him, perhaps, but how to perform that which is good, he finds not; the evil, which he would not do, he does; he recognizes, then, a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin. He has educated and exercised his affections, until now they defy him: they are his despot, and he is their slave. C. S. Robinson. Repeated acts become principles of action, and every man is the creature of his own past life. If nature alone—treacherous and degraded nature—is silent in denouncing sin—if she has no instinctive power to arouse herself, what shall she be when doubly and trebly indurated by habit; when the malformed limb becomes ossified; when that faculty which was destined to be, under Divine guidance, the antagonist of nature, "a second nature," as it is truly called, to reform, and resist, and overlay the first, is perverted into the traitorous auxiliary of its corruption? We know not ourselves sinners, because from infancy we have breathed the atmosphere of sin; and we now breathe it, as we do the outward air, unceasingly, yet with scarcely a consciousness of the act! A man lives in the frigid formalism of external religion, ion, or in the habitual neglect of God (itself a sin, and the parent of all sin), until it seems almost impossible to separate the habit from life itself; to live at all is to live thus; and he as little dreams of asking himself, can it indeed be true that he is a sinner calmly travelling the pathway to ruin, as he does of seriously inquiring whether his heart beats, or whether his hair turns gray with years. The process has been so constant as to be forgotten, and has at length become almost equally independent of voluntary effort. He sins, so to speak, mechanically. The terrible power of irreligion, become thus habitual, to blind men to the momentous peril of their daily state, is above all evinced in this—that every form of exhortation or appeal is weak to break the lethargy; yet not at all from any unbelief of the facts or doctrines stated, but from an obstinate refusal or inability to imagine that they can have the remotest reference to the hearer himself. Archer Butler. The disease that is inveterate is generally thought incurable. Those that have been long accustomed to sin have shaken off the restraints of fear and shame; their consciences are scared, the habits of sin are confirmed, it pleads prescription, and it is just with God to give those up to their own hearts' lusts that have long refused to give up themselves to His grace. Sin is the blackness of the soul, the deformity of it; it is its spot, the discoloring of it; it is natural to us, we were shapen in it, so that we cannot get clear of it by any power of our own; but there is an almighty grace that is able to change the Ethiopian's skin, and that grace shall not be wanting to those that in a sense of their need of it seek it earnestly, and improve it faithfully. H. Observe that the impossibility referred to is a natural one. It is not said that under no circumstances whatever can a man accustomed to do evil be enabled to do good. The thing affirmed is that the power of habit and custom is so strong that he cannot turn himself. If we are inclined to doubt this, and indulge in that glorification of human nature which is at once so easy and so perilous, we have only to think of the illustrations here employed. It is vain to discuss with a man who is determined to magnify the power of the natural man toward that which is right and good. The better plan is to assure one's own heart of the truth which God would make plain by these illustrations of His own giving. If any one asserted that an Ethiopian could change his skin or a leopard his spots, he would be reckoned a fool past arguing with. But there are multitudes who think it is very good advice to tell the poor slave of worldliness and passion to be a man and exert the strength of his will and turn away from evil. Now, what God says here by His prophet is that every such attempt must end in disappointment. No doubt there are certain times and stages in life when it is hard to accept such a view. It is a humbling and limiting view, one which exhibits in such an uncompromising way our weakness. But the sooner we come to take such a view—to take it practically and not in a mere speculative manner—to feel that the way of self-recovery and self-perfecting is closed against us, the better it will be for us. The consequent need of a gracious intervention. This is not stated here, but we know that it is meant to be remembered. In all such emphatic assertions of human inability there lies the suggestion that we may look confidently and ought to look promptly for abundance of Divine help. God puts His hand on our mouths to stop all proud words, but at the same time He would lead us to lay hold of His promises and be filled with His strength. A clear vision of our own inability means a clear vision of the need of Divine intervention, and a clear vision of the need of Divine intervention may be expected to prepare for an equally clear vision of the reality of that intervention. That which measures the impossibilities in the corrupted natural man helps to measure the reasonable purposes and expectations of the man who is renewed by the Spirit of God. Y. Self-reformation is impossible. Sin is not a mere defilement to be washed off. It is ingrained. It is in the blood, in the life, in the nature. Action is according to character. If the character is corrupt, so must be the action. It is true we are free to do as we will, but so long as our nature is corrupt we shall will to do evil, because the will is part of the nature. But apart from the vexed question of the freedom of the will, every man is conscious of the difficulty of overcoming opposing habits, even when his will is roused against them. When he would do good evil is present with him, and this evil is so strong that it can only be regarded as a law of (corrupted) nature (Rom. 7: 21-23). Adeney. Sin not only corrupts the springs of a man's moral life, but paralyzes all his nobler powers, robs him of the ability to act out the better inintents of his nature. The voice of natural conscience may not be wholly silenced, the natural heart may not be utterly destitute of good impulses; but there is no redeeming power in these. As well expect the darkness to give birth to light, and life to spring spontaneously out of death, as suppose that a sin-loving, sin-hardened man will of himself forsake his evil ways. He will never be able by his own hand "to pluck the vicious quitch of blood and custom wholly out of him." The complete moral helplessness of humanity was made abundantly evident before the full revelation of Gospel grace. It was when we were "without strength" that Christ "died for the ungodly." The wondrous efficacy of the regenerating power of God. The most defiled and degraded nature may be transformed by the touch of Him who made it. Even the skin of the Ethiopian and the leopard's spots must yield to the sovereignty of the Divine energy. Deep-rooted and habitual as the evil in a man's heart and life may be, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth him from it, and when the Spirit of Christ moulds the substance of his being he becomes "a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. 5: 17). W.—A true sorrow for sin may be induced in answer to prayer, by the study of Scripture, and the contemplation of Christ; but it is always the work of the Holy Spirit. When that grace, however, has once been attained, it is open to the sinner to reverse the process by which he has been enslaved. After conversion evil habit will assert itself, and can only be met by constant dependence upon Divine grace and constant effort after holiness. The good habit formed by repeated and regular actions according to the law of God is the best antidote to the evil one. M. 26,27. These figures have occurred already (2: 23, 24 and 3: 2). They are fearfully significant of the shamelessness of her idolatries and the depth of moral corruption which they involved. Oh, if Jerusalem would only consent to be made clean! After how long shall it be? The prophet longs for the distant day when the processes of Divine judgment shall have taken effect, and the nation shall be once more washed clean of this great pollution, incurred by her worship of idol gods. H. C. 14:1 THE word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought. 2. Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish, they sit in black upon the ground; and 3 the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. And their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the pits, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty: they are ashamed 4 and confounded, and cover their heads. Because of the ground which is chapt, for that no 5 rain hath been in the land, the plowmen are ashamed, they cover their heads. Yea, the hind 6 also in the field calveth, and forsaketh her young, because there is no grass. And the wild asses stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage. 7 Though our iniquities testify against us, work thou for thy name's sake, O LORD: for our 8 backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee. O thou hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in the time of trouble, why shouldst thou be as a sojourner in the land, and as a 9 wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? Why shouldst thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not. 10 Thus saith the LORD unto this people, Even so have they loved to wander; they have not refrained their feet: therefore the LORD doth not accept them; now will he remember their 11 iniquity, and visit their sins. And the LORD said unto me, Pray not for this people for their 12 good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, 13 and by the pestilence. Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in 14 this place. Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake I unto them: they prophesy unto you a lying vision, and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their own heart. 15 Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and 16 famine shall those prophets be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour 17 their wickedness upon them. And thou shalt say this word unto them, Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people 18 is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound. If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! for both the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowl- edge. 19 Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul loathed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of 20 healing, and behold dismay! We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity 21 of our fathers: for we have sinned against thee. Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake; do 22 not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us. Are there any among the vanities of the heathen that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art thou not he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee; for thou hast made all these things. 15:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth. 2 And it shall come to pass, when they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for cap- 3 tivity, to captivity. And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour 4 and to destroy. And I will cause them to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall turn aside to ask of thy welfare? Thou hast rejected me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore have I stretched out my hand against thee, and destroyed thee; I am weary with repenting. And I have fanned them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them of children, I have destroyed my people; they have not returned from their ways. Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a spoiler at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall upon her suddenly. She that hath borne seven languish; she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day; she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD. 10 Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent on usury, neither have men lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me. The LORD said, Verily I will strengthen thee for good; verily I will cause the enemy to make supplication unto thee in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. 12, 13 Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass? Thy substance and thy treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders. 14 And I will make them to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you. 15 O LORD, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered reproach. 16 Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts. I sat not in the assembly of them that make merry, nor rejoiced: I sat alone because of thy hand; for thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail? 19 Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, that thou mayest stand before me; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: they shall return unto thee, but thou shalt not return unto them. And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall; and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the LORD. 21 And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible. Chaps. 14, 15. These chapters belong to one discourse. No date appears, nor does there seem to be anything in the discourse itself to fix its date precisely. It was occasioned by a fearful drought. This fact gives tone to the whole. It was also a time of war and famine (verse 18), and the people were just on the eve of captivity. But to which of the several seasons of captivity this refers, is not clear. There were three principal seasons—viz., in the fourth year of Jehoiakim; at the close of the short reign of Jehoiachin; and at the close of the reign of Zedekiah. This chapter opens with a graphic description of fearful drought (verses 2-6); records the prophet's interceding prayer (verses 7-9); the Lord's answer (verses 10-12); and further communications between the Lord and His prophet (verses 13-18); closing with yet another prayer in the spirit of most imploring intercession for his people (verses 19-22). This chapter is specially interesting as an instance of interceding prayer under most depressing circumstances, even when the Lord had plainly intimated that He could neither hear nor save. 14: 1. A little attention to the subject matter of this chapter will show that it is rather the history of a great drought, embracing prayers to God and communications from Him, than throughout a message from God concerning the drought. Accordingly, the chapter does not open with the formula which usually precedes and introduces a message that is simply and only a direct revelation from God. This reads literally, "What was the word of the Lord to Jeremiah concerning the words" (or history) "of the drought." The important points of the chapter are those things that come from God in respect to this case of drought. Let it be borne in mind that drought is one of the forms of great calamity which God had stipulated, ages before, as the penalty to be suffered by the people if they should forsake their God and go into idolatry. The standard passages are De. 11 : 16, 17; 28 : 23, 24; Lev. 26 : 19, 20. H. C. 1-6. In the southern climates of the East, rain, as a rule, falls at fixed periods of the year. Failure in the periodical showers is followed by failure of the coming harvest. If the drought be severe, and spread over a large extent of country, the outcome is scarcity, and when prolonged, famine. The people perish with hunger, and the cattle for lack of fodder. Every green thing dries up; the brooks fail; even the wells fall empty; the naked ground bakes and cracks; the glare is intolerable, and the atmosphere a furnace. The distress of man and beast is here sadly pictured. Sir W. Muir. 7-9. The appeal of those who have become keenly sensitive to God's separation from them. This is set forth by two figures. He has become as a stranger in the land, as a wayfarer pitching his tent for the night. The people profess to wonder why it is so, and yet they need not wonder. He who has been in their midst because, first of all, He has gathered them around Him as the recipients of measureless privileges, finds rivals raised on every high place and in every grove. His special commands are shut out from influence on the conduct of daily life. His messenger is scorned by rulers and conspired against by His own kinsfolk. What is all this but to become even worse than a stranger? Needless, then, was it to ask the question, "Why shouldst thou be as a stranger in the land?" As well might the ebbing sea ask the rock round which it rolled at flood why it had forsaken it. Jehovah had remained the same in truth, in love and in purpose. It was the people who had failed, and flowed further and further away from Him. They talked of Him as a mere wanderer among them, whereas they were the real wanderers, wandering in heart, drifting about from one temporary satisfaction to another. Y. 7. Every word of this prayer is exceedingly appropriate; confession of sin; the fullest admission that "our iniquities testify against us;" falling back upon the name—i.e., the nature of God as the only plea. H. C.—In a manner like this does every soul pray that is deeply contrite. It has boldness enough amid all its guilt to come to God's throne and to keep there, but beyond this it has sometimes no boldness at all. It leaves God to show mercy to it in His own way, and to deal with it after His own will. It feels that it needs everything. But it feels, too, that if its heavenly Father will but look on it, will but pity it, that will be enough. He is so rich, that He can give it all it wants; and so bountiful, that if He gives it anything, He will keep back nothing which will do it good. All it desires is to be treated as His child, and then come what may, it will bless Him for it. Come frowns or smiles, come stripes or caresses, it is thankful. It is in its Father's house and its Father's hands, and that contents it. Bradley. 8. That God had so often been the Saviour of Israel in her past seasons of trouble inspired hope yet. The prophet begs that God will come and dwell still with His people, and not be as a stranger, one not at home, or as a traveller who stops but for a night. All this is beautifully expressive of holy desire and legitimate prayer. The pious implore God to make their heart and their people His permanent abode, and never leave them. H. C. Looking out upon the woful evils which ravage earth—physical, intellectual, moral—diseases, superstitions, sins—one can scarce forbear to cry: Are the hands to which all power in heaven and on earth is committed still bound? and, in the language of Jeremiah, to question "the hope of Israel, the savior thereof in time of trouble, why shouldst thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? Why shouldst thou be as a man astonished, as a mighty man that cannot save?" But ever cometh the answer, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." And "we trust that, somehow, good will be the final goal of ill." There is that in the Christian's heart that forbids his thinking otherwise. By the breath of God frost is given, and the seal of death is set on life. Days and nights come and go, and snows make desolate the face of nature. But after winter is spring; and after death, resurrection; and after the hiding of His face, glory; and behind "the hiding of His power," omnipotence. We rest in the firm conviction that He who abides the same continually, and is Love, will evolve harmony out of all the discords of earth. And with the solution of the various vexed and vexing questions that naturally arise in our minds in connection with the existence and continuance of evil, the solution that He will give, we shall be satisfied. N. W. Wells. 9. Is not the arm of Jehovah equal to any demand upon it? strong to save in every emergency? I will not (says the prophet) think of God as far away. Let me rather think of Him as still among us, for His name is called upon this people; and let me pray that He will never leave us. Such is his prayer. H. C. The sinful nation confesses that in itself there is no hope, but as that conviction is arrived at, another asserts itself—viz., that God is the Hope of Israel, and that in His name or character there is the promise and potency of restoration. It is in spiritual transitions like these that the soul is lost and found again. Temptation is anticipated and overcome, sin is cast away and God is throned in the heart. It is better to make such honest discovery of ourselves to God, even in our weakness and lack of faith, than that we should carry these into the conduct of life. It is in these transitions of despair and hope reaching to and resting in restored faith and settled purpose of righteousness, that the overcoming of the world is already accomplished. M. 10-16. The dispute between God and His prophet, in this chapter, seems to be like that between the owner and the dresser of the vineyard concerning the barren fig-tree (Luke 13: 7). The justice of the owner condemns it to be cut down, the clemency of the dresser intercedes for a reprieve; Jeremiah had been earnest with God, in prayer, to return in mercy to this people. H. 10-12. The Lord replies that the people have wholly given up their heart to sin, have loved to wander from Him; that the time of retribution has now come, and He must punish. Therefore He cannot hear the prophet's prayer, and requests Him to desist. Indeed, if the people themselves were now to pray even with fasting and sacrifice, the Lord could not hear their cry or accept their offerings. 14-16. The Lord can take no responsibility for their lies. But those very prophets shall be terribly destroyed by the very sword and famine which they declared should not come upon the land. And the people whom they had deceived could not be held innocent. They should have known better. They too must be cast out to lie unburied; for God will pour back upon them the fruit of their own great wickedness. H. C. 13-16. Attempts are constantly made to evolve religious truth out of the inner consciousness of the thinker. No idle dreams are more delusive, since men have not the materials out of which to build a theology of their own; they have not the faculties capable of using those materials—sin perverts the spiritual vision, prejudice and self-interest distort views of truth. False teaching in religion will be punished by fatal results. It ought to be clear to everybody that the first question concerning any teaching is whether it is true. Yet this question is often ignored. The prophet is eloquent; the doctrine is pleasing; the prediction is inviting. But what of all that if it is false? Then the false prophet will suffer by the fulfilment in himself of the prophecy he denied, and the people by the coming of the evil day they were too ready to hear discredited. P. C. The great peril of the day is compromise, amalgamation and suppression of truth by mutual consent. Our most dangerous foes are not the decorative and monastic ritualist, nor the loud-barking atheist or sceptic; but the plausible, courteous, affiliating, "dearly-beloved brethren," who would knit all the so-called churches in one patchwork quilt, which might cover them in a soft and downy bed of spiritual sleep, leaving them to dream of security and charity, while the noxious errors which prevail among them are eating out the vitals of true godliness, spiritual experience and sound doctrine. Dean of Carlisle. 17-22. It is plain by the prayers we find in these verses that the prophet did not understand it (verse 11) as a prohibition, but only as a discouragement, like that (1 John 5: 16), "I do not say he shall pray for that." H.—The next chapter will show us that the Lord was firmly fixed in His purpose to hear no prayer for His sinning people. Yet it does not appear that He frowned on His weeping prophet for this imploring supplication in their behalf. Jeremiah did not take issue with God against His justice, but he did exceedingly desire of the Lord pardoning mercy for the guilty people. The Lord had therefore only to assure him that his request could not be granted. Chap. 15. The subject continues from the previous chapter, the Lord reaffirming His purpose not to hear prayer for the people, but to go on to execute His threatening of sore judgments. Hence, we have the severity and certainty of these judgments discussed (verses 1-9); then mostly the mental trials, fears, prayers and anguish of the prophet, with the Lord's reply to him in verses 10-21. H. C. To the supplication at the close of the preceding chapter God replies by declaring that not even the intercession of His favored servants, Moses and Samuel, should divert Him from executing His purpose of vengeance against Judah, which is denounced in terms of great severity (verses 1-9). At verse 10 Jeremiah breaks out into a passionate exclamation, on account of the odium and persecution that was brought upon him. God reproves him for speaking slightly of the Divine aid, the benefit of which he had already experienced. The prophet deprecates the ill effects of God's displeasure, representing the cheerful readiness with which he had obeyed the Divine call, and the continual uneasiness he had felt in contemplating the melancholy subject of his commission (verses 15-18). Assurances of protection and security are renewed to him, on condition of obedience and fidelity on his part (verse 19 to the end). Blayney. 1. Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me.** Moses obtained pardon for the people after their sin of making the golden calf (Ex. 32 : 34), and again, after their despising the promised land (Num. 14 : 20) ; Samuel's intercession prevailed for their deliverance out of the hands of the Philistines (1 Sam. 7 : 9) ; and these two persons are mentioned together, as remarkably prevalent by their prayers (Ps. 99 : 6, 8). But here God saith, that if these very persons were alive, and in that near attendance to Him which they formerly enjoyed (for that is the import of the phrase "to stand before Him"—see verse 19 ; 18 : 20), yet even their prayers should not avert His judgments from His people. (Cf. Ezek. 14 : 14.) W. Lowth. Imploring, fervent and, in the main, appropriate, as the prophet's intercessions for his people were, the Lord having fully purposed to punish, He could not hear prayer for the reversal of that purpose. He must, therefore, give His servant to understand that this point is settled irreversibly. Hence He says, "Even if Moses and Samuel were here pleading before Me, My mind could not incline to mercy for this people. Cast them out of My sight"—as if the people themselves stood or were represented before Him. "Let them go" from My presence and favor. The reader who is familiar with the Scripture history of Moses and of Samuel will readily see why they are named in this connection as striking examples of prevailing, intercessory prayer. H. C.—Moses and Samuel were two as great favorites of Heaven as ever were the blessings of this earth, and were particularly famed for the success of their mediation between God and His offending people ; many a time they had been destroyed if Moses had not stood before Him in the breach ; and to Samuel's prayers they owed their lives (1 Sam. 12 : 19) ; yet even their intercessions should not prevail. H. The fact that such intercession is declared in this case to be vain implies that, under other conditions, it might be effectual. Moses and Samuel often stood before the Lord as mediators on behalf of the people whom they represented. Their power with God lay in the elevation of their character and the intimacy of their fellowship with Him. Every age has borne witness to the reality and efficacy of this power. "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" on behalf of his fellow-men. Who can tell how much it is owing to such intercession that a guilty world has been saved from hopeless abandonment ? There are times when no human intervention is of any avail. Even the pleading of Moses and Samuel could not have averted the threatened judgments. "My mind could not be toward this people." Why ? Simply because of the obstinacy of their unbelief and irreligion. It is not that God is not merciful and gracious and ready to forgive, or that the pleadings of good and holy men have no power with Him. It is that the inveterate obduracy of men nullifies all the persuasive influence alike of Divine and human love. God's mind cannot be toward those who with obstinate impenitence refuse His grace. There is a limit beyond which even Divine patience cannot go. W. 4. I will cause them to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth.** Never was there a prophecy more literally fulfilled ; and it is still a standing monument of Divine truth. The Jews are scattered through every nation, and yet are not a nation ; nor do they form even a colony on any part of the face of the earth. A. C. "For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth" (Amos 9 : 9). These are merely examples of many predictions which might be quoted ; they have the clearness of history, and they have now the emphasis of a fulfilment which is mysterious in its antecedent process, but clear as noonday in its results. By the laws of amalgamation or extinction, we cannot account for the changes which appear in the smaller as well as vaster nations of the world ; we can trace the causes by which Hungary and Poland have been prostrated, and by which Russia is still rising and extending in her colossal strength ; we can see in the ruin of France, in the triumph of Prussia and the gradual collapse of the Turkish Empire various forces at work which have often reappeared in history ; we can trace in the slow amalgamation of races in America and in the rapid disappearance of Indian tribes laws definite almost as those which regulate the planetary system; we have a sound philosophy of history, whose great aim is not the mere aggregate of many facts, but the exposition of their causes, and we are satisfied with the conclusions which have been reached; but in the Israelites we have a people which baffle historical adjustment, and whose characteristics are not reducible within any commonly recognized classification. They remain a marvellous isolation. In Britain, the distinctions of Norman and Celt and Saxon are fast disappearing; but the Jews are everywhere "scattered," and yet everywhere retain not only their physical features, but their intellectual, moral and religious conformation. Apart from the Bible, unaided reason has failed to solve the problem of a people scattered and down-trodden by the nations for nearly two thousand years, yet universally preserved. What a terrible past has been theirs! What a mysterious present! Adrian made it death to the Jew to set his foot amid the ruins of Jerusalem; Justinian abolished the synagogues; Mahomet sought the destruction of every Jew; the Church of Rome has done her best for their extirpation, and has failed. "The Jews" were everywhere the objects of popular insult, of almost intolerable oppression, and frequently of a general massacre. No mode of cruelty was deemed unjustifiable. Again and again were they banished from France; they were driven from Spain; England, during the Crusades, gathered her forces to destroy them; the barons, to win popular favor during their struggle with Henry III., slaughtered seven hundred of them, and plundered their houses; Edward I. seized all their property, and drove them in misery from the kingdom, and four hundred dreary years elapsed ere they ventured to return. There is no history which is not darkened by their wrongs, and there is none unstained by their blood. The Jew is, at this moment, a wanderer in every land, with a home in none. In no country is he unknown, from Norway to Japan, from Spain to Southern Africa; and no social grade in the East or the West is without his presence. Yet from obscurity and apparent helplessness, in our great cities they rise through every social stage, until they sit honored amid the proudest. In London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin they are the money-holders of Europe, deciding the questions of peace and war, and giving impulse or restraint to the commerce of the world. Although inwrought with the whole fabric of society, they are yet not of it; they are truly a "peculiar people," resisting almost all those social, intellectual and moral agencies by which communities are changed. W. Fraser. 5. The object here is not to reflect upon the prophet for his bitter tears over the fall of his country, but rather to represent her guilt as so great that even Gentile nations and foreign cities would feel that she had richly deserved to bear her doom uncared for and unpitied. 6. Often and most kindly had the Lord called the people to Himself; but they had only gone backward from Him the more. He had repeatedly threatened, and then relaxed His purpose to punish; waited, borne and sometimes forgiven; but now He is weary of repenting in this sense, and is fully purposed not to yield to any plea in their behalf, but to go on forthwith to execute His long-threatened judgments. Years had passed since Manasseh's long reign closed and he went to his grave. One more vigorous effort had been made under Josiah, sustained by such men as Habakkuk, Zephaniah and Jeremiah, to reclaim and save the nation. It had promised fairly for a season, but after Josiah's death the people relapsed with terrific rapidity. They seemed to sink suddenly to a horrible depth of depravity, for only a three months' reign intervened under Jehoahaz before Jehoiakim mounted the throne, and in his fourth year the first great deportation of captives took place. A considerable number of Jeremiah's messages from the Lord bear date within this first four years of Jehoiakim, all showing that the state of morals was appalling, and that the spirit of idolatry was deep and apparently almost universal. H. C. God may be weary of repenting. We may cease to repent of our sin; then God will cease to repent of His wrath. We may sin so deeply and so persistently that He may no longer find it possible to withhold His threatened punishment. God is long-suffering; He waits for the return of His children. Though the recompense of evil-doing is due, it is deferred; God spares the guilty for the sake of the intercession of the righteous. But this cannot be forever. We may sin away the grace of God. Though God's mercy endureth forever the enjoyment of it by the impenitent cannot be perpetual. Eternal mercy may have to give place to eternal justice. Adeney. 10-14. Jeremiah is now retired into his closet; what passed between him and his God there we have an account of in these and the following verses, which he published afterward, to affect the people with the weight and importance of his messages to them. H. 10. The connecting link of suggestive thought between the doom of his people—which is the prophet's theme in verses 1-9—and his own personal case, which is mostly the subject onward to the close of the chapter, seems to lie in the prominence given to the mothers of Jerusalem in the former portion, suggesting to the prophet the case of his own mother and of himself. The heart of the prophet has not come up to view since we closed chap. 14 till now. We may recollect that we left him there imploring mercy for his people, his very soul gushing forth in tenderest pity over their calamity. In this chapter the Lord absolutely shuts off his prayer, and then proceeds to give a very touching picture of the miseries that are to fall on young and old, on fathers and especially mothers in the general slaughter. Is it strange that the prophet's mind should revert to himself and to his own lot, as one of almost insupportable trial and anguish? If his prayer might avail to save his people, he could bear any amount of persecution, hate, obloquy and peril of life. But to be shut off from prayer on the side toward God, and from all sympathy on the side toward men; to receive no messages from the Lord but those of doom and vengeance, and no response from the people but curses; to be thrown into some doubt whether his overflowing sympathies and his general work as a prophet were accepted before God, and to have such terrible assurance that it was in no sense well received by his fellow-countrymen—all these circumstances constitute a crucible of sevenfold heat to try his temper and to torture his soul. Let us aim to appreciate his circumstances as we proceed to note his words and study his spirit. His expressions here are by no means so extreme as those of Job (chap. 3) in that hour when, faltering under his almost crushing burden of woe, he cursed his birthday and all its surroundings, because they let him live through that birth-scene in which he so wished that he had died. Jeremiah's words legitimately mean only this: Alas for me that I was born to be a man of strife and conflict to the whole earth! to live only to be a mark to be shot at; a man to be hated and cursed on every side! What have I done that should doom me to such odium? "I have neither lent to others on usury, nor have they so lent to me, yet they all curse me." H. C. The proper way of regarding the words is to take them as vividly indicating a position which no words could sufficiently describe. Jeremiah sometimes felt himself so hated and so isolated that there seemed but one way of accounting for his experience, and that was that he had been born to it. We know, indeed, that the truth was far otherwise. (See chap. 1:5.) There we see how Jehovah Himself reckoned Jeremiah to have come into this earthly existence not for suffering, but for a career of noble and useful action, which, rightly considered, was a high privilege. But a man who is constantly suffering from the sin of his fellow-men in all its shapes and all its degrees cannot be always looking at the bright side and speaking in harmony with such a view. Y. 12-14. It will be all in vain for the Jews, weak as they are when their God is against them, to break the power of their Chaldean invaders from the north. The double allusion to the north is forcible, the north being at once the quarter whence the hardest iron came, and the quarter whence the invincible Chaldeans came. The previous verse had intimated a time of sore calamity upon the Jews; this intimates the quarter whence it would come and its resistless power. 15. This language is abrupt and broken, in the tone of strong feeling. The prophet's natural love of life and indignation against his persecutors demand and obtain utterance. The middle clause, "Take me not away in Thy long suffering," seems to mean, Let not Thy long-suffering toward my enemies prove my ruin. Do not bear with them till they have taken my life. H. C. O Lord, Thou knowest. It is a matter of comfort to us that whatever ails us we have a God to go to, before whom we may spread our case and to whose omniscience we may appeal, as the prophet here, "O Lord, Thou knowest; Thou knowest my sincerity, which men are resolved they will not acknowledge; Thou knowest my distress, which men disdain to take notice of." H. 16. He means to say that as soon as he heard the words of the Lord given him to be published, he devoured them greedily—took them to his mind and heart as a hungry man seizes and eats food. This same figure reappears in Ezek. 2:8; 3:1, and in Rev. 10:9, 10. The prophet loved the words of God, and performed his prophetic work with a dutiful and warmly pious heart. Recognizing himself as bearing the name of the Lord and as devoted to his work, he made it his business and gave his whole heart to it. This is truly a noble record if true, and his history gives rich evidence of its truth. H. C. There is intimated here: 1. The vital relation truth bears to the divinely enlightened soul. "I did eat it." No physical image could be more suggestive of the intimacy of this spiritual relationship. It indicates: The soul's preparation to welcome the truth. There is a divinely awakened appetite. The active participation of the powers of the soul in the process. It is more than a mere passive reception. The assimilation of the truth into the very being of the man. As food is transformed into the living fibre of the body, so that truth becomes a part of the very substance of his spiritual nature, the stay of his strength, the inspiration of his life. The word is translated into the form of holy character and godlike deed. 2. The gladdening effect of discovered truth. "Thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart." There can be no purer, nobler joy than that which springs from conscious communion with the mind of God. His Word admits us to the realities of a world undarkened by the shadows and undisturbed by the storms that trouble this. P. C. They became to him the joy and rejoicing of his inward life. All words of God, apprehended in their real meaning, give strength, peace, satisfaction, harmony in the nobler parts of human nature. It was because these words were readily accepted and fully received that they became a joy and rejoicing to the heart, and then in the strength, fortitude, zeal, thus communicated, the prophet went forth to his arduous work. Here surely is the secret of his steadfastness. God had put His words in His servant's mouth (chap. 1:9); but that was all He could do. It was for the prophet himself so to treat the words that he should give them with all the added force of his own sanctified personality. Y. The words of God are not so hidden that they cannot be discovered by the earnest and prayerful seeker after truth. He that seeks shall find (Matt. 7:8). Many honest, earnest men pass through a season of doubt, but few such remain hopeless sceptics all their lives. Of those who never find the light probably some are suffering from some moral or intellectual perversity which distorts their vision, and others are not content to trust to the measure of light that has been given to them, and remain restless and questioning because they desire satisfaction in a direction wherein it cannot yet be afforded. But so long as all such men do not convert doubt into settled unbelief, and are not satisfied with doubt, we may be assured that ultimately the Father of lights will dispel the darkness that now troubles their souls. The words of God are food for the soul. Christ, the "Word made flesh," is the "Bread of life." Truth is intended to feed our starving souls. The object of revelation is practical. The result of rightly using revelation is seen in an increase of spiritual vitality, in refreshment, heightened energy and growth in the inner life. If the words of God have not attained this end, they have failed of their object. They are food because they are not empty breath, but the vehicles of vital truths—of spirit and life (John 6:63). God is in His own words. They are inspired words. With the spoken words we receive the life-giving Spirit. The words of God must be eaten to profit us. It is not enough that they are spoken, heard, understood, believed, remembered, admired; they must be eaten. We must apply them to ourselves. The starving man gains nothing by looking at food through a shop-window. The external, intellectual study of truth is profitless to the soul. We must hear the voice of God speaking directly to us and in regard to our immediate conduct. We must meditate over the words of God. Truth must be analyzed, ideas separated and compared, "inwardly digested," hidden in the soul and quietly thought over. Our common habit is to treat it too superficially and hastily. We must abstract the vital ideas from the dry husk of words. Words are not profitable so long as they are regarded from the outside as mere language. We must break the shell and get at the kernel, casting aside the flesh that profiteth nothing and assimilating the spirit that quickeneth. The words of God bring joy when they are found and eaten. To some they appear to be dull sayings, to some stern utterances of law, to some harsh messages of judgment. This is because they are not properly applied. They must first be truly found and eaten—applied, meditated on, spiritually assimilated. Then they lead to joy, for: 1. All truth is essentially noble, beautiful and glorious. 2. Even the darker truth is wholesome as a warning, like nauseous medicine that cures pain and restores the serenity of health. 3. The highest truth is a revelation of the love of God—a Gospel of good-will to men. Adeney. Sanctification is the object of the entire volume. He who reads the Bible without experiencing in his heart, or evincing in his life, any sanctifying influence; he whose affections it never stirs, whose understanding it never enlightens, whose imagination it never exalts, whose will it never directs, whose conscience it never reaches, may be quite sure that, from whatever cause, he does not read aright. E. M. G.—The life is leavened by that which supports and nourishes it. The indwelling Word is a consecrating influence and withdraws men from the pursuits and fellowship of the world. In this way the saint becomes identified with his Lord; a child of grace; a worker in the same great cause; a subject of like opposition, and an heir of the same kingdom. By producing the character of holiness they inscribe the Divine Name upon the heart, and link the life and destiny of the saint with the cause of God. M. It is a perfectly legitimate position to say, We hold a ground of certitude, from which none of this strife of tongues is able to dislodge us. We have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is the Christ. The Scriptures which we have received, not without knowledge of the grounds on which controversialists defend them, have proved themselves to us by their own witness. The light is its own proof. We have the experience of Christ and His law. He has saved our souls; He has changed our lives. We know whom we have believed; and we are neither irrational nor obstinate when we avow that we will not pretend to suspend these convictions on the issue of any debate. All the opposition will be broken into spray against that rock bulwark: “Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and they are the joy and rejoicing of my heart.” A. M. 17. The Lord had given him such views of the case as between Himself and this wicked people, that his heart, like God’s, was burning with indignation against their sin. It seemed to him more than he could bear to think of such an abuse of the great and blessed God, and of such outrageous rebellion against Him. Why should not his soul be filled and fired with holy indignation? 18. This tone of complaint is strong—must we not say too strong, especially the implication in the last clause that God had not been altogether truthful and reliable. Was not this the prophet’s human infirmity—nature in the ascendant over grace? It slightly softens the severity of the language to translate as we may, not “as a failing brook, even as waters that fail.” 19. The passage is exceedingly rich in its instruction to ministers of the Gospel. How should they stand by and with the Lord their God in unfaltering allegiance, with the firmest adherence to His truth and obedience to His behests! How should they be careful to expel all that is vile from their temper and character, and cultivate all the precious qualities that grace has implanted and would fain develop into vigorous and all-pervading vitality! H. C.—Faithful ministers are God’s mouth to us; they are so to look upon themselves, and to speak God’s mind, and as becomes the oracles of God; and we are so to look upon them, and to hear God speaking to us by them. Observe, if thou keep close to thine instructions, thou shalt be as My mouth, not otherwise; so far and no further God will stand by ministers, as they go by the written word, “Thou shalt be as My mouth, what thou sayest shall be made good, as if I Myself had said it.” H. It is by the gracious words of Divine mercy that the hearts of men are to be subdued; these must always be the prime means of affecting and vanquishing the impenitent. The human mind is framed to be influenced far more by hope and tenderness than by terror and rebuke. This great truth may be assumed as one that is fully established and universally confessed. But the Christian ministry includes also an office of commination; and if the messengers of Heaven, when they go forth among outcasts and strangers, who, in utter ignorance of God, have gone far astray from virtue, are to speak much more of mercy than of wrath; it is also true that, when they stand up among those who, being well informed in matters of religion, use the grace of the Gospel to palliate their vices, it is especially the message of wrath, which they are called upon to proclaim. The abusers of the Gospel are not to be treated as men theologically wrong; but in the ostensible and common character of evil doers and open contemners of the awful authority of Heaven. I. Taylor. 20,21. The Lord could say to him as to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” So here in Old Testament phrase indeed, but in the very sense of our blessed Lord to Paul, Jehovah promises to make His prophet “a fortified brazen wall” which they might assail but could not overthrow, nor even breach. (See 1:18, 19, where the same promise was given him in the outset of his prophetic life.) Will it not always be true that the Lord stands by those who stand by Him; will make their strength as their day, and apportion grace to the measure of human infirmity and weakness? Only let His servants put their trust in Him, so shall their souls never be put to shame. H. C. 16:1, 2 THE word of the LORD came also unto me, saying, Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place. For thus saith the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land: They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung upon the face of the ground: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. For thus saith the LORD, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the LORD, even lovingkindness and tender mercies. Both great and small shall die in this land: they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them: neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother. And thou shalt not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God? then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; and ye have done evil more than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that ye hearken not unto me: therefore will I cast you forth out of this land into the land that ye have not known, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; for I will shew you no favour. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, As the LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, as the LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers. Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity concealed from mine eyes. And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled mine inheritance with their abominations. O LORD, my strength, and my strong hold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, unto thee shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Our fathers have inherited nought but lies, even vanity and things wherein there is no profit. Shall a man make unto himself gods, which yet are no gods? Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know, this once will I cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is Jehovah. Chap. 16. The special message commencing here embraces the entire sixteenth chapter and the first eighteen verses of chap. 17. The date is not given, but the subject-matter favors its date in the third or fourth year of Jehoiakim, about the time when he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, and "the Lord brought upon the land bands of Chaldeans, Syrians," etc., resulting in the first deportation of captives to Babylon. (See 2 K. 24:1, 2.) These calamities were obviously just at hand—the first instalment of that series of judgments which closed with the final and utter devastation and depopulation of the country. H. C. 1-9. The prophet is here for a sign to the people; they would not regard what he said, let it be tried whether they will regard what he does. In general, he must conduct himself so in everything as became one that expected to see his country in ruins very shortly. This he foretold, but few regarded the prediction; therefore he is to show that he is himself fully satisfied in the truth of it. Others go on in their usual course, but he, in the prospect of these sad times, is forbidden, and therefore forbears marriage, mourning for the dead and mirth. H.—It is made plain upon the surface of this command that the house of mourning and the house of feasting are not forbidden in themselves. The man on whom the injunction is laid is a special man, and he is spoken to in special circumstances. All others may cross the threshold of such houses; the prophet alone must remain outside. This peculiar conduct was meant to emphasize his predictions. Every time there is a funeral or a marriage feast, the terrible judgments shortly coming on the land are once more set forth. The worst sorrows of the present are but as a child's shallow grief compared with the universal and dreadful experiences that are yet to come; and in the joys of the present it would be unseemly for the man to share whose breast is filled with the sense of how soon these joys must pass away. A man who had to live as Jeremiah lived, in such an age, with such a message, seeing visions of so much woe, how could he receive pleasure from any festive gathering or bring pleasure to it? The more he advances in his mission as prophet the more he has to walk alone. Y. 2. The prophet, remaining unmarried and without family by a special command of the Lord, would be a standing testimony to the people of the judgments impending over the land. It was also a kindness to him, exempting him from some cares that might otherwise have greatly augmented the difficulties of his very difficult work. H. C. 5. Have taken away loving-kindness and tender mercies.** Nothing sweeter than mercy when it is improved; nothing fiercer when it is abused; nothing colder than lead when it is taken out of the mine; nothing more scalding than lead when it is heated; nothing blunter than iron; nothing sharper when it is whetted. "The mercy of the Lord is upon them that fear Him." Mercy is not for them that sin and fear not, but for them that fear and sin not. God's mercy is a holy mercy; where it pardons it heals. Watson. 9. Essentially the same things are said (chap. 7:34). That this should occur before their eyes and in their days indicates it to be very near at hand. 10-13. Note the care taken to make the people inquire after the causes of these sore calamities. For the desired moral results this was of the utmost consequence. The Lord would have them understand that these judgments came because of their great sins, and very particularly because of their sins in the worship of idol gods, and in violation of His law generally. These phrases have occurred before. H. C. 10. The picture drawn by Jeremiah is vague and yet terribly suggestive. It is so foreign to the experience and expectation of his hearers that they look upon it with incredulity and astonishment. Instead of evoking from them expressions of repentance and fear concerning the way in which they are walking, it provokes questions that exhibit the callous indifference and self-deception of hardened hearts. They cannot conceive of such a fate awaiting them. What have they done? Is it just that their conduct should be so dealt with? If any offence had been committed, surely it was out of all proportion to such a judgment, and so on. Is not this the attitude of the sinner today? The more awful the future predicted for him the more secure he feels in himself now. He fails to trace the definite line of connection between the germ and the fruit of his sin. It is a part of his infatuation to misapprehend the law of the Divine reward and punishment, and even the real outlines and proportions of the Divine character. M. 14-21. There is a mixture of mercy and judgment in these verses, and it is hard to know to which to apply some of the passages here, they are so interwoven; and some seem to look as far forward as the times of the Gospel. H. 14. God here gives the people notice of a future restoration, on purpose to guard them during their exile from falling into idolatry through despair, by letting them see they had still a prospect of recovering God's wonted favor and protection. Blayney.—These words of promise are interposed here for the comfort of all pious hearts, to show that these judgments would not exterminate the nation utterly, for yet a remnant should survive and should still enjoy the rich mercies of the God of their fathers. The deliverance from this new captivity would so greatly eclipse the exodus from Egypt as quite to supersede it in the thought and speech of the people. The former would cease to be named as the one great deliverance; the latter would take its place. In form the same promises occur again (23 : 7, 8). H. C. Here again we come upon the evangelical element in Jeremiah's prophecies; and again we have to notice that, when this element does appear, it makes up for its infrequency by the brilliance and emphasis of the prediction. The prophet has just been compelled to speak of domestic suffering, national exile and the withdrawal for a season of Divine favor. These necessary judgments must be magnified and stated in all their severity; not one of them can be omitted; the cup poured out by Jehovah must be drunk to its last drop. But when all these experiences are over, terrible and yet full of discipline, a glorious future remains. The manner of the prophecy is full of encouragement, and not least in this, that there is such a sudden turning from the deepest darkness to the brightness of noon. Y. 15. God will bring back His banished ones, and make good the promise: "I will bring them again into the land that I gave unto their fathers." Till then, a church without a temple, a people without a country, a race without a home, a nation meted out and trodden down, they shall be a proverb and a by-word and a perpetual hissing. Strange fortunes these! yet, far from proving God's hand to be shortened, they prove the very reverse. With the regularity of a law of nature, one of two fates has befallen all other conquered nations. Like the Indians of America, who have fallen before the white man as their forests before his axe, they have been extirpated; or the conquered have intermarried with their conquerors to breed a race like ours, in whose veins flows the mingled tide of Roman, Celtic, Saxon and Scandinavian blood. The fate of the Jews how different and how singular! They have been oppressed, persecuted, trodden under foot; and, like the grass which grows thickest when trodden on, they have thriven under oppression—bearing a charmed life—the true sons of their fathers in the land of Egypt; of whom it was said, the more they were afflicted, the more they multiplied and grew. The Jews are everywhere, inhabiting every country, yet belonging to none; mixed with every people, but combining with none. By the thrones of kings, in the senate-house of nations, in the mart of business, in the ranks of armies, everywhere the same, the Jew preserves his nationality, his faith, his haughty pride, his blood so pure that, whether you encounter him in the streets of London, or Paris, or Rome, or Petersburg, or Pekin, you can tell at once by his features that he is a son of Abraham. They exist among others as no other race ever did—like oil in water; and like oil, too, where their talents and ambition have free play, they usually rise to the top. They are not a holy nation, nor are they zealous of good works; yet they are a peculiar people—a standing moral miracle; their history a mystery. Living, multiplying, flourishing amid circumstances that, by all the common laws of providence, should have been fatal to their existence, they illustrate the unchanging and unchangeable purpose and power of God. Guthrie. 16. Enemies and oppressors are elsewhere represented under the metaphors of "fishers" and "hunters (see Gen. 10 : 9; Amos 4 : 2; Hab. 1 : 14, 15), because they use all the methods of open force and secret wiles, frequently compared to nets, in order to make men their prey. (See Ezek. 12 : 13; Hos. 5 : 1.) These two similitudes imply that the Chaldeans shall make an entire conquest and booty of the whole land, of its inhabitants and their riches; and what shall escape one party shall fall into the hands of another. W. Loweth. 16-21. The striking imagery of these verses teaches us that there shall be no hiding-place, whether by sea or land, where God will not find those whom His vengeance pursues. The sinner may be sure that his sin will find him out. Men doubt this. Long impunity has made them bold. Such findings of them out as have taken place, in defilement of conscience, hardening of the heart, loss of peace with God, etc., they do not care for. They only care for public exposure and punishment. They see others go on in sin unpunished. But the declaration of God on this matter is nevertheless true. The Scriptures affirm it (compare all those which teach the omniscience and omnipresence of God). Conscience attests it. There is nothing in sin to show wherefore it should not be. The revelation of the future life distinctly provides for it. And even now it is continually being proved true. A man's sin finds him out in many ways—in body, mind, estate, reputation, etc. And in one or more of these sin does ever find a man out, even now. The apparent exceptions are accounted for on the ground of God's long suffering to the sinful; God's purpose to test and exercise the faith of His own people. A deep and abiding conviction of this to be greatly desired. And such conviction may be had. It is the sacred and salutary power of prayer thus to make God real to us. In prayer we look to Him and we see Him looking upon us; we speak to Him and He speaks to us; by aid of it we walk with Him and He walks with us. He who thus lives in daily fellowship with God can never be without the conviction spoken of. C. 19,20. Addressing God as his own strength and refuge, he expresses his confident assurance that Gentile nations, taught by His dealings with Israel, will come to the true God, acknowledging that the idol gods of their fathers were lies and vanity, and astonished that a man should think to make his own gods which yet could be no gods at all. This must have been a most delightful anticipation to the tried and tender heart of this prophet. H. C. They shall be brought to acknowledge that their God only is God indeed, for He is a God in need; my Strength to support and comfort me; my Fortress to protect and shelter me, and my Refuge to whom I may flee in the day of affliction. Need drives many to God who had set themselves at a distance from Him. Those that slighted Him in the day of their prosperity will be glad to flee to Him in the day of their affliction. H. It was One who knew that said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Happy are they only who have sorrow sweetened by the Divine promise. They have storms, but they have both an anchor and a haven. Goodness cannot be manifested more clearly than in a sanctifying process, however severe. There are thoughts in the darkened chamber of sorrow which visit us nowhere else—important, salutary thoughts, to instruct, confirm, purify, arm and comfort; thoughts of our sin, our selfishness, our idolatry, our worldliness, our unbelief; thoughts of the abiding joy laid up in heaven, where sickness, alarm, despair and sin never come. And I speak the mind of all sanctified affliction, when I add, that among them all, no thought is more constant than that of God's goodness as an eternal refuge. J. W. A. We are in a state of trial because we are men, because we are limited in the capacities of our understanding and in the power of our endurance; but we are subject to so painful a necessity as this pre-eminently because we are sinners, and because a heroic treatment is needed if we are to secure salvation from sin. We are full of pride, and the root of Pharisaism needs to be cut by the sharp edge of God's truth. The malady of the heart needs to be exposed; and sometimes that requires severe, stern, painful, persistent discipline. Oh, the obstinacy of the human soul! And then, if we remember that covetousness is idolatry, who of us is there that has not been guilty of idolatry! The riches of this world, the pleasures of this life, the applause of men—oh, how sweet they are, how eagerly sought for amid the mad competitions of life! And it requires a stern and bitter discipline sometimes to teach us that the things that are seen are, after all, only temporal, while the things that are unseen are the only things that are eternal. O beloved! God loves you. He knows that there is weakness in you. He knows you will rest your souls' salvation on the false foundation of your own righteousness unless He sweeps that from underneath you, and makes you feel that there is nothing but emptiness under your feet; and so comes in the serious discipline of life, to teach us our weakness and show us the weakness of our supports, that we may hasten to find refuge in His grace, and to find shelter under the shadow of His wing. Behrends. 21. He will give His people this experience for the sake in part of its influence on the heathen—as much as to say, Very true, the influence of these judgments on My apostate people will reach and bless the heathen, therefore all the more will I make My people know the power of My hand and the glorious attributes of My eternal being. H. C. The Gentiles are represented as coming to Jehovah. They have groped their way out of darkness and disentangled themselves from superstitions, while the very people whom Jehovah had brought to Himself with so much power and patience, making their way clear and safe, would not inwardly come, even though they were outwardly brought. Their hearts were not changed with their changed circumstances. And it is a thing which cannot be too much remarked, that the Gentiles have long had an understanding, not only of the New Testament, but equally of the Old, which the children of Israel have been utterly unable to reach. And not only are these Gentiles to come; they are to come from the ends of the earth. God's drawing power is felt everywhere. Jerusalem is the centre from which light and truth in their great historical manifestations have gone out. Y. 17:1 THE sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars; whilst their children remember their altars and their Asherim by the green trees upon the high hills. O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures for a spoil, and thy high places, because of sin, throughout all thy borders. And thou, even of thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger which shall burn for ever. 5. Thus saith the LORD: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out his roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat cometh, but his leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is desperately sick: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. As the partridge that gathereth young which she hath not brought forth, so is he that getteth riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days they shall leave him, and at his end he shall be a fool. 12. A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed; they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters. Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise. Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the LORD? let it come now. As for me, I have not hastened from being a shepherd after thee; neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was before thy face. Be not a terror unto me: thou art my refuge in the day of evil. Let them be ashamed that persecute me, but let not me be ashamed; let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction. 19. Thus saith the LORD unto me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; and say unto them, Hear ye the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates; thus saith the LORD: Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work: but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers; but they hearkened not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, and might not receive instruction. And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the LORD, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but to hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for ever. And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the lowland, and from the mountains, and from the South, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and oblations, and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving, unto the house of the LORD. But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched. Chap. 17. As indicated in remarks introductory to chap. 16, the first eighteen verses of this chapter may be considered as a continuation of the same message. The thought turns on the depth and strength of the national sin (verses 1, 2); the exterminating judgments that must ensue (verses 3, 4); the comparative results of trusting in man and trusting in God (verses 5-8); the treachery of the heart, the instability of riches, the scoffs of the wicked against the prophet's messages, and his consequent prayer. H. C. In this chapter the prophet describes in the first four verses the attachment of Judah to idolatry, and foretells the fatal consequences. He contrasteth the accursed condition of him who resteth his trust on man with the blessedness of one that trusteth in God, and illustrates both by apt comparisons (verses 5-8). He showeth that, be the human heart ever so wily, God can detect, and will finally punish its double dealing (verses 9-11). He acknowledgeth that sure salvation cometh from God, and from Him only (verses 12-14). And, complaining of those that scoffed at his predictions, he prayed for the Divine countenance and support against them (verses 15-18). The remaining part of the chapter is taken up with a distinct prophecy relative to the strict observance of the Sabbath day, which the prophet was sent—most probably immediately after the delivery of the foregoing—to proclaim aloud, in all the gates of Jerusalem, as a matter which concerned the conduct of every individual, and the general happiness of the whole. 1. With a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond.** This is spoken metaphorically, and is meant to denote that idolatry was indelibly fixed in their affections and memory, as much as if it had been engraved with instruments capable of making the strongest and most durable impression, upon their hearts as upon a writing tablet, and upon their altars so as to be forever present before their eyes. (Cf. De. 11: 18-20; Prov. 3: 3; 7: 3.) Blayney. 1,2. The sin of Judah, and especially her sin of idolatry, is deep in her heart; as the memory (i.e., love) of children do they love their altars, groves, etc. In this construction verse 2 amplifies and illustrates the thought of verse 1, by comparing Judah's love of idols to the love felt for children in parental bosoms. As parents love their children with an enduring love, that no perverseness can eradicate and no coldness or ingratitude can quench, so do this people love their idol altars and groves. H. C. Sin leaves a record of itself. It is not an isolated act. It begets consequences, plants memories, creates guilt. The record remains even if we do not read it. God still notes it, and will some day confront us with it. Hence it is not enough to amend our ways for the future. We need to have past transgressions blotted out if we are to be restored to peace with God. Adeney. That we do not see the evil of our life proves one of two things—either that there is no evil to see or that we are spiritually blind and cannot see the evil which there is. Now, spiritual blindness has for its usual concomitant spiritual pride; and the man spiritually blind is the very last who will admit that he is so. If we are left to ourselves we shall never discover the original cause and fountain of all our troubles; something outside of ourselves must come in and lead to an altered view of the purposes and possibilities of life. Y. 3. "O my mountain, I will give thy substance in the field," etc. Nations and princes of great power and eminence are figuratively called "mountains," in regard to their strength and elevation. (See chap. 51: 25; Isa. 41: 15; Zech. 4: 7.) Judah is therefore styled God's mountain, as having been chosen by Him, and thereby raised to a degree of elevation above all other people. Blayney. 5-8. Trust: human and Divine.** The prophet here presents before us a vivid contrast between two types of human character. He does this by the use of suggestive images drawn from the realm of nature, as one accustomed to see the great lessons of man's moral life and destiny reflected in visible forms in the sandy desert and sterile places of the wilderness, and in the fertile valleys and woody banks of the flowing river. The imagery is peculiarly Oriental. We can all appreciate it in some measure, but those who have seen the scanty, stunted vegetable growths of the desert side by side with the rich foliage that clothes the moist ravines and the borders of the water-courses, can best understand the exquisite truth and fitness of the analogies. W. 5,6. The Hebrew language, having three distinct words for man, has the advantage of our English in the finer shades of a passage like this: "Cursed is the man" (the strong man) "who trusteth in man" (frail man of the earth), "who maketh flesh" (mere weakness as opposed to spirit) "his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord"—in the sense of forsaking His service and worship, and hence of necessity ceasing to trust in God as his strength. The heath in the desert, according to our English version, would be a shrub which might possibly live in the desert under favorable circumstances. The picture is of one who is cut off from all earthly good, from friends, society, helpers in trouble, everything that gives comfort to man or joy to human life. The sentiment is good for all time and for all circumstances; for every individual, everywhere and always. The moment we accept the truth of God's universal providence and take in the precious views of it given by our Divine Lord (Matt. 6: 25-34), as shown in God's care for the fowls of heaven and the lilies and grass of the field, we shall see the fitness of "casting all our care upon Him because He careth for us," and because His care is infinitely more and better than our own. H. C. The sin here condemned is trusting in man, putting that confidence in the wisdom and power, the kindness and faithfulness of men, which should be placed in those attributes of God only; making our applications to men, and raising our expectations from them as principal agents, whereas they are but instruments in the hand of Providence. It is making flesh the arm we stay upon, the arm we work with, and with which we hope to work our point; the arm under which we shelter ourselves, and on which we depend for protection. God is His people's arm (Isa. 33: 2). We must not think to make any creature to be that to us which God has undertaken to be. H. To "make flesh one's arm" is suggestive of personal reliance on merely human and earthly resources, in neglect of the spiritual and Divine. It takes the form of undue self-confidence—confidence in one's own wisdom and strength, or confidence in our fellow-creatures, who are as ignorant and weak and fallible as ourselves, or confidence in that which is outward and circumstantial—worldly riches, sensible gratifications, material guarantees. Such a trust is false and delusive. It has no sure foundation. It seeks life in the region of death. As the plant finds nothing to nourish it in the barren sand, so man can never draw the nutriment his being needs from mere human and earthly resources. W. 7,8. In beautiful antithesis stands the case of him who trusteth in the Lord. He is blessed. He is an Oriental tree whose roots find living water on the river bank, and which has no occasion for anxiety in the year of drought. In this passage the author's mind is manifestly on that beautiful description (Ps. 1: 3) which paints the blessedness of the good man. His heart always green and verdant, his life always bearing the fruits of holiness, he is a living witness to the riches of grace and to the wealth of resources for essential victory over sin which lie stored in the bosom of our God, ever flowing out to fill the hungry, humble, trusting souls of His people. H. C. In the first psalm the righteous man stands like a graceful tree before an ornamented gateway to an Oriental garden. "Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." In these words of Jeremiah this comparison is drawn out with still greater minuteness: "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh; but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." In those Egyptian deserts on the banks of the Nile the traveller may see the very living picture that the prophet and poet may have had in his own mind. He may see trees apparently growing out of the hot, glistening, scorching sand banks, in which half their trunks are already buried, but all verdant at the top with thick, luxuriant foliage, where not even the spiky shrubs of the wilderness can grow beneath. It is because they are so deeply rooted now, where they sprang at first, in the nourishing soil of the bed of the river, and no upper external changes of sand, or heat, or drought can affect them short of a complete submerging by a deluge of the desert. Such is the delightful image of a Christian, whose trust is in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. Such is the perpetual and joyful verdure and fruitfulness of a soul that is rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. Cheever. The man "who trusts in the Lord" is planted in the best soil for perfect growth. His leaves are bathed in the air that is most healthful and invigorating. The sun rises upon him and sifts its gentle beams down through all his being. He dwells in a land as different from that of the man whose heart departeth from the Lord—as different as the green valley through whose bosom flows a crystal stream is from the blazing sky and burning sand of the desert. The living water flowing in glad refreshment to the believer from Christ's love, the rich soil of the Word contributing its nourishment and the blessed light of hope lending its inspiration, the man grows to his true proportions and rises to his high and noble destiny. There in his daily life is the beauty of holiness. There the precious fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. There are the beneficent graces that shine out to the view. And this ever-fresh life and fruitfulness the blasting heat of adversity and of temptation cannot destroy. The refreshing waters are abundant, and through faith they carry life to the thirsty soul. In all the fiery trials that come, amid all the adverse influences that surround it, the life still shows in beauty, and the character grows in enduring strength. One of the grand duties in the service required of the Christian here below is just to stand in the place where God has planted him and grow up in the beauty of holiness and yield the fruits of the Spirit. The Christian who mourns a lack of ability and opportunity, and who seems to himself to be doing nothing for his Lord, may see here how greatly he mistakes his calling. To live Christ, to show the power of faith and the practical working of Christian truth in himself; to show the beauty of the Christian spirit and the sweetness of its temper and the nobleness of its character—this is the chief way to glorify God and advance His kingdom in the world. To just grow up before men as a tree by living waters, flourishing in the grand proportions of a Christian manhood, this is the most effective contribution to the redemption of the world. Men seeing your good works will glorify your Father in heaven. And so let every Christian abide in faith by the living waters, drink of them continually, and lift his head forever in the sunshine of the loving-kindness of the Lord. Interior. He is the strong man who trusts in Jehovah, and he is strong just as far as he does trust. Notice how the requirement of trust is expressed twice over, first by a verb and then by a noun, both of which have the same root letters. It is as if we first saw the man in the active exercise of trust, and then the habitual confidence of his nature. We see the man trusting and we also see the trusting man. "All things are possible to him that believeth." When God speaks, the trustful hearer readily acts upon the strength of God meaning what He says. The statements of the Gospel transcend human powers of discovery, and they can only be believed because God makes them—He whose regular and beneficent ways in nature prove Him to be so true. Man by faith puts himself in the hands of God, his Maker, and then he can do things far beyond what he has hitherto imagined to be practicable. Y. Not careful in drought. We have always or we can always get strength enough to bear the evil when it comes. We have not strength to bear the foreboding of it. "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." In strict proportion to the God-appointed existing exigency will be the God-given power. But if we crowd both the sorrows of to-day, which we actually feel, and those of to-morrow which we anticipate, into the narrow room of four-and-twenty hours, there is no promise that our strength will be as that day. God gives us power to bear all the sorrows and cares of His making; but He does not bind Himself to give us power to bear those which we manufacture with perverse industry for ourselves by being "over-exquisite to cast the fashion of uncertain evils." The Lord would teach us that the exercise of that anxious care, which is the misuse of the great faculty of looking forward and picturing things to come, is contrary to nature, revelation and providence; that it weakens and distracts; that it takes the sunshine out of every landscape and flings a shadow over all good. Surely God gave us that wonderful faculty for better purposes than that we might by it torment ourselves, and suffer every evil twice over. Why should we exercise our power of imagining the future chiefly in regard to to-morrow's possible evils, when we might by its aid fill the winter of our earthly life with the glorious summer of eternity, and bring assurance of things hoped for to lighten the dark present? We cannot but look forward; but we may choose whether we shall look but a little way ahead on the low level, or beyond and above all the trifles at hand to "that one far-off Divine event to which the whole creation moves." A. M. 9. The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is desperately sick: who can know it?** The plain sense of this verse is, that the heart is more deceitful than any other known thing, and is sick unto death—a case to be despaired of—so deceitful and so bad that the world may be challenged to fathom and search it all out. "Who can know it" to the bottom? There is no word in Hebrew corresponding to our English word "wicked." Hopelessly, irrecoverably deceitful so far as human relief goes, seems to be the sense of the original. There is reason for the suggestion that the prophet had the case of King Jehoiakim specially in mind here, as also in verses 6, 7. But his form of statement is general and applies to the deep and subtle depravity of the unrenewed heart in all men. H. C. The heart calls evil good, and good evil; puts false colors upon things, and cries peace to those to whom peace does not belong. When men say in their hearts, suffer their hearts to whisper to them, that either there is no God, or He does not see, or He will not require, or they shall have peace, though they go on; in these and a thousand similar suggestions the heart is deceitful; it cheats men into their own ruin; and this will be the aggravation of it, that they are self-deceivers, self-destroyers. Herein the heart is desperately wicked; it is deadly, it is desperate. The case is bad indeed, and in a manner past relief if the conscience, which should rectify the errors of the other faculties, is itself a mother of falsehood and a ringleader in the delusion. What will become of a man if that in him which should be the candle of the Lord give a false light—if God's deputy in the soul that is intrusted to support His interests betrays them? Such is the deceitfulness of the heart, that we may truly say, "Who can know it?" Who can describe how bad the heart is? We cannot know our own hearts, not what they will do in an hour of temptation (Hezekiah did not, Peter did not), nor what corrupt dispositions there are in them, nor in how many things they have turned aside; who can understand his errors? Much less can we know the hearts of others, or have any dependence upon them. II. In the heart we find the true man. The outer life is but the clothing, and may be the mask of the man. From the heart spring all the actions of life. The character of the fountain determines that of the stream. The root of the evil of the heart is self-will. It is rugged above all things, proud, not compliant with God's will, wrapped up in self. The character of the evil of the heart is desperate sickness, for sin is a disease of the soul, though one for which we are responsible, and it results in suffering, general derangement of life, and finally death. The evil of the heart is inscrutable to man. "Who can know it?" This is the case, because we cannot read the hearts of our fellow-men, but only judge from external conduct, which is often deceptive; because we are blinded to our own sin by pride, prejudice and self-admiration; because there is an intricacy and subtlety about all wickedness which makes it difficult to trace it out, a shamefacedness that seeks concealment, and an essential falseness that belies its own nature; and because the disease has made so great progress, has penetrated so deeply, ramified so far, and infected every function of the soul so completely that it is beyond all measure. Adeney. Notice in particular that it is by the heart that the heart is to be known. Heart knowledge is not like other kinds of knowledge; it depends on the character of him who knows. There is no essential contradiction between high intellectual acquirements and a hard, selfish and perhaps even, in some instances, a profligate life. Men of refined tastes and great intellectual sensibilities may be thoroughly selfish, careless about the toil and suffering of the world, so long as these plant no thorn in their pillows, infuse no bitterness into their cup. But one who would know the heart must be very sure of his own motives, otherwise he may make human nature to appear better in some respects and worse in others than it really is. The description here may, therefore, be taken as applying even more forcibly to the heart that knows than to the heart that is to be known. Here the great difficulty and danger lie. For the deceitful and corrupt heart can be known, if not by any one else, at all events by Jehovah Himself. But the deceitful and corrupt heart cannot know; it does not, in the fullest sense of the word, know anything at all. With hearts put right, what a wonderful increase of knowledge and of the profit and pleasure of knowledge will there be! But till then we are not unlike those who suffer from diseased intellects. Y. There is a secret disposition in the heart of all to all sin; temptation doth not fall on us as a ball of fire on ice or snow, but as a spark on tinder, or lightning on a thatched roof, which presently is on a flame. Hence in Scripture, though tempted by Satan, yet the sin is charged on us, "Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed." Mark! 'tis Satan tempts, but our own lust draws us. The fowler lays the shrap, but the bird's own desire betrays it into the net. Gurnall. When the tenderness of the soul is lost, and its first awe of God and religion broke by a bold sin, it grows venturous, and ready to throw itself upon all sorts of outrages and enormities. It does not demur and tremble as it used to do, when anything gross and foul was proposed to it; but it closes with it readily, and steps undauntedly into that stream that is like to carry away and swallow it up forever. This growing, encroaching mischief perhaps first fastens but upon the thoughts, and they take the liberty to settle upon some unlawful base thing, like flies upon a carcass; from these it advances a step farther, and seizes the desires, which presently are carried out with a restless eagerness after the same vile object; and these at length meet with some friendly opportunity, by the help of which they break forth into actual commission; which actual commission grows from one into many, and comes to be frequent and repeated, till it settles into a custom and fixes itself immovably and forever in a man's behavior. South. When once a man has done a wrong thing it has an awful power of attracting him and making him hunger to do it again. Every evil that I do may, indeed, for a moment create in me a revulsion of conscience, but stronger than that revulsion of conscience it exercises a fascination over me which it is hard to resist. It is a great deal easier to find a man that has never done a wrong thing than to find a man that has only done it once. If the wall of the dyke is sound it will keep the water out, but if there is the tiniest hole in it, it will all come in. So the evil that you do asserts its power over you, it has a fierce, longing desire after you, and it gets you into its clutches. Beware of the first evils, for as sure as you are living, the first step taken will make the second seem to become necessary. The first drop will be followed by a bigger second, and the second, at a shorter interval, by a more copious third, until the drops become a shower, and shower becomes a deluge. The course of evil is ever wider and deeper, and more tumultuous. The little sins get in at the window and open the front door for the big housebreakers. One smooths the path for the other. All sin has an awful power of perpetuating and increasing itself. As the prophet says in his awful vision of the doleful creatures that make their sport in the desolate city, "None of them shall want her mate. The wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wild beasts of the islands." Every sin tells upon character, and makes the repetition of itself more and more easy. "None is barren among them." And all sin is linked together in a slimy tangle, like a field of seaweed, so that the man once caught in its oozy fingers is almost sure to drown. A. M. Great criminals struggle toward not against their crime. They buffet with opposing waves to gain the bloody shore, not to recede from it. This man went on knowingly, with infinite endurance, pains and perseverance to his deed of guilt. Dickens. It is not that the world does not abound with manifestations of moral as well as of physical beauty. It is not that many fair and admirable impulses and principles of action are not every day witnessed by men; that the family relation, that the larger social relations, have not their virtues respected and honored among us. This is not what the Bible asserts when it speaks of the heart of man as utterly depraved, of the world as a moral ruin. What it does assert is this—that all which is excellent in the natural man is excellent irrespectively of his God; that he loves, hates, prefers, rejects—and often rightly too—but without any thought of God's laws of preference and rejection; that thus all—and there is much—that is beautiful in his best impulses is beautiful only as the flower or the landscape is beautiful; his heart as little moving through its circle of social kindness from a desire to approve itself to the God who has commanded them, as the flower expands its petals and sheds its fragrance in voluntary obedience to Him who created it—the one beauty being as much and as little religious as the other. If every motive must be comparatively worthless for the activities of eternity but that which connects us directly with our God; if with the earthly framework the earthly impulses shall in death be dissipated, and the immortal spirit be left to those alone which can stand the fiery test of God's tremendous presence, then no virtue but godliness, no excellence but that which springs from God, no affection but that which tends to God, no rule of life but that which God has sanctioned and which trains for God, can ever be the virtue, or the excellence, or the affection, or the rule, which is fitted for a creature travelling hourly on through time to God's own eternity. W. A. B. To put the question concerning the natural depravity of man to the severest test; take the best of the human species, the watchful, diligent, self-denying Christian, and let him decide the controversy; and that, not by inferences drawn from the practices of a thoughtless and dissolute world, but by an appeal to his personal experience. Go with him into his closet, ask him his opinion of the corruption of the heart, and he will tell you that he is deeply sensible of its power, for that he has learned it from much self-observation and long acquaintance with the workings of his own mind. He will tell you that every day strengthens this conviction; yea, that hourly he sees fresh reason to deplore his want of simplicity in intention, his infirmity of purpose, his low views, his selfish, unworthy desires, his backwardness to set about his duty, his languor and coldness in performing it; that he finds himself obliged continually to confess that he feels within him two opposite principles, and that he cannot do the things that he would. He cries out in the language of the excellent Hooker, "The little fruit which we have in holiness, it is, God knoweth, corrupt and unsound; we put no confidence at all in it, we challenge nothing in the world for it, we dare not call God to reckoning as if we had Him in our debt books; our continual suit to Him is, and must be, to bear with our infirmities, and pardon our offences!" Wilberforce. 10. "I the Lord search the heart; I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." With great beauty and force we are taught here that what man cannot search out God can. It is His prerogative to search and to know the inmost heart of man. Nothing can ever be hidden from his piercing eye. Nor does He search and know men's hearts for purposes of idle curiosity, or for the mere information itself, but for the far higher and more practical purpose of awarding retribution to men according to their ways. The connection shows plainly that men's ways are here supposed to be estimated according to the purpose and intent of their heart. Their "ways," in the sense of external life, could not be judged righteously save by one who perfectly knows the heart. So the Lord judges not alone by what human eyes can see, as it is written (1 Sam. 16: 7), "The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart;" or (as 1 K. 8: 39), "Give thou to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men." H. C. "I the Lord search the heart." This is true of all that is in the heart; all the thoughts of it, the quickest and those that are most carelessly overlooked by ourselves; all the intents of it, the closest, and those that are most artfully disguised and industriously concealed from others. Men may be imposed upon, but God cannot. He not only searches the heart with a piercing eye, but He tries the reins to pass a judgment upon what He discovers, to give everything its true character and due weight. He tries, as the gold is tried, whether it be standard or no; as the prisoner is tried, whether he be guilty or no. And this judgment which He makes of the heart is in order to His passing judgment upon the man; it is to give to every man according to his ways, according to the desert and tendency of them; life to those that walked in the ways of life, and death to those that persisted in the paths of the destroyer; and according to the fruit of his doings, the effect and influence his doings have had upon others; or, according to what is settled by the word of God to be the fruit of men's doings, blessings to the obedient, and curses to the disobedient. Therefore God is Judge Himself, and He alone, because He and none besides knows the hearts of the children of men. It is true especially of all the deceitfulness and wickedness of the heart; all its corrupt devices, desires and designs God observes and discerns; and (which is more than any man can do) He judges of the overt act by the heart. God knows more evil of us than we do by ourselves; which is a good reason why we should not flatter ourselves, but always stand in awe of the judgment of God. H. God knows us in all our motives, through all our concealments, and can set our secret sins—the operation of destroying causes that lie even below our consciousness—in the light of His countenance. When once we discover how competent God is to search and try, we shall then see that it is vain for us to deny what He affirms, to excuse what He condemns, and to make out that we are not responsible when He lays evil at our doors. Y. We may often think very well of ourselves, when, in fact, our hidden life is pining away and dying; or we may be unhappy and distressed about ourselves when it is really growing daily stronger and more lasting; but it is not hidden from the eyes of God. He sees it more than He sees anything else in us. We see all the unrealities; our eyes see shadows and fancies much better than substances—they see all the worldly, earthly, temporary, unreal things; but God sees the true, substantial, eternal things. His eye is on our souls; He sees thoughts; He sees the hidden life, its progress, its healthiness, its growth and strength. He alone knows by whom and how far the life that He gave (the life that He is) is cherished, prized, fed and strengthened by prayer and holy obedience, or checked, blighted and languishing by careless cultivation and neglect. Bp. Moberly. 11. The covetous man, says Dahler, who heaps up riches by unjust ways, is compared to a bird which hatches the eggs of other fowls. And as the young when hatched, and able at all to shift for themselves, abandon her who is not their mother, and leave her nothing to compensate her trouble; so the covetous man loses those unjustly gotten treasures, and the fruit of his labor. And at his end shall be a fool. Shall be reputed as such. He was a fool all the way through; he lost his soul to get wealth, and this wealth he never enjoyed. A. C.—He was a fool all along; sometimes perhaps his own conscience told him so, but at his end he will appear to be so. Those are fools indeed who are fools in their latter end; and such multitudes will prove who were cried up as wise men that did well for themselves (Ps. 49 : 13, 18). They that get grace will be wise in their latter end, will have the comfort of it in death and the benefit of it to eternity (Prov. 19 : 20); but they that place their happiness in the wealth of the world, and, right or wrong, will be rich, will rue the folly of it when it is too late to rectify the fatal mistake. This is like the partridge that sits on eggs and hatches them not, but they are broken (as Job 39 : 15), or stolen (as Isa. 10 : 14), or they become addle: some sort of fowl there was well known among the Jews, whose case this commonly was. The rich man takes a great deal of pains to get an estate together, and sits brooding upon it, but never has any comfort or satisfaction in it; his projects to enrich himself by sinful courses miscarry and come to nothing. Let us therefore be wise in time; what we get to get it honestly; and what we have to use it charitably; that we may lay up in store a good foundation, and be wise for eternity. H. Money honestly earned by useful labor of muscle or brain, money honestly made by skill or industry that creates or increases values, is a good and useful thing. Honestly gained and worthily used—used conscientiously, benevolently, devoutly—it is a means of grace and of blessing. But our Lord spoke of the “deceitfulness of riches.” Solemnly He warned His disciples to “beware of covetousness.” The word thus rendered forcibly expresses the passion for accumulation. It is not the diligent earning of money for good and generous uses, but the getting in order to keep and accumulate. Upon no desire of the human mind can the devil operate more successfully to persuade men to try his methods. He has made multitudes believe that his methods of doing business are the only methods that are “practical” or can succeed. Believe that and adopt his methods, calling them “laws of trade” or by any other handsome name, and you are selling yourself to the devil. H. A. Nelson. Many are the personal temptations always accompanying wealth — temptation to make financial possessions the standard of worth, and to look down on those who are less fortunate as inferiors; temptation to make a selfish and tyrannous use of power (a temptation as great in the commercial world as in the military and governmental); temptation to use wealth for the gratification of appetite and passion and caprice, prostituting opportunity to purposes of dissipation or idleness; and temptation, above all, to one who sees the constant obsequiousness of those who seek his aid, to “purse-proud haughtiness, that worst sort of pride, because it puts money above manhood, forgetting that a man is really rich or poor, according to what he is, and not according to what he has.” Instead of blaming rich men for not being better, I sometimes wonder, considering how they are beset, that they are as good as they are. For all these reasons, it requires extraordinary grace and force of character to be a rich man, and yet to be a good man. A. J. Brown. The conclusion of the whole matter is that we are to use the world as not abusing it, and so as not to let it abuse us. Really, what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul! Wealth is a means, not an end. Happy is that man who, owning houses and lands, mills and railways, stocks and bonds, is yet bigger than all these, using them and forbidding them to use him, remembering his God, his Church, his country and his kind, and so utilizing the opportunities of earth to lay up treasure in heaven. This universe is the richer in all ways for every such man. God, multiply them! But equally to be commended is the poor man who is not overcome by the world; who does not envy the rich, or waste his existence in struggling to ape them, or rave at God and society because his lot is what it is, or shut his mind to that blessedness which is higher than what Mammon can bestow. I never chide the laboring classes for their unrest. Much of it is from God. It is the glory and hope of our age that the common man is at last astir and active and must be heeded. Nor are men to blame for wanting more of the world’s valuables. The appetite for gain in itself is no part of our depravity; and the time is coming when, in case of each honest man, it will be gratified. What is sad is that so many of us ignore the true, ultimate meaning of righteous unrest and of righteous desire for gain. Walk with God, get character, faith, life—something to spur good discontent, and good love of possession, and guide them to worthy ends; making one think it of slight moment after all whether he personally owns little or much, so he only lives and acts well; this is the message of Jesus; this is the Gospel for our time. E. B. Andrews. 12-18. Here, as often before, we have the prophet retired for private meditation, and alone with God. Those ministers that would have comfort in their work must be much so. In his converse here with God and his own heart he takes the liberty, which devout souls sometimes use in their soliloquies, to pass from one thing to another, without tying themselves too strictly to the laws of method and coherence. H. 12. The prophet thinks of God as symbolically enthroned in His earthly temple, "the place of our sanctuary," yet really as filling His eternal throne in the highest heavens. H. C. —As in the preceding verses was set forth the vain dependence of him who seeks to advance himself by indirect methods, so here we are taught the solid foundation which he builds upon who has recourse to the Divine blessing, and seeks to recommend himself to the favor of that Being to whom Israel was taught to look up for support, and whose kingdom from all eternity ruleth over all. Blayney. 13. "Ashamed" as usual in the sense of confounded, put to confusion by being utterly disappointed and baffled in every purpose and hope. They that depart from me (God) shall be written in the dust, the sand, with only a perishable record of fame, because they have forsaken the Lord. The allusion to "the fountain," etc., carries our thoughts to chap. 2 : 13 : "They have forsaken" Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water. H. C. Though not stated in so many words, it is cheerfully implied that those cleaving to God have their names written whence they can never be erased. For their names are indeed written, as it were, on the heart of God Himself. He cannot either forget or forsake them. They are ever remembered in the wisdom of His thoughts and the resistless movements of His ways. The best thing that can happen to us in purely human relations is to be written in the hearts of those who love us ; when they remember us, not because it is their interest to do so, but out of an unselfish fulness of desire for our welfare and happiness. But how much better is it to be thus remembered by God, seeing that with Him there abides a love inexpressibly deeper than any human affection, and, along with this love, a wisdom and power with which even the highest human wisdom and power are not for a moment to be mentioned ! 15. The lesson is plain : do not reject truth, or in any wise try to evade it because it comes through some one you do not like. What Jeremiah said here, respecting the character and work of these men, was true ; and they do not deny the truth. They simply ignore the charges, and by one scornful question hint that the threatenings connected with the charges are but as empty words. 16-18. The prophet's consciousness of integrity. We may take it that this one question (verse 15), "Where is the word of Jehovah ?" stands for a great deal in the way of taunt. The appeal to God, with which the prophet follows up the mention of this question, shows how much he felt the attacks made upon him. It would be too much to say that he did not expostulate with his enemies upon their injustice ; but evidently his great resort was to the God who had sent him. If men perversely attributed to him daring imposture and bitter malignity, he could do nothing but fall back on God's knowledge of his course and motives. Y. 16. This verse is a twofold vindication of himself ; on the one hand, as toward God, and on the other, as toward the people. On the side toward God he says he has not torn himself away from the work of a prophet, has not refused to follow the manifest will of God in his pastoral work ; and on the side toward the people, he had not desired their punishment. 18. The prophet's sympathies are entirely with God, and with righteousness and truth against wickedness, and against those who in this case represented wickedness and had identified themselves with it. Hence these utterances. The issue is fully made between them and me—them, as Thine enemies and mine ; me, as Thy prophet, as the messenger of Thy fearful words of judgment. Now, therefore, let them be confounded and dismayed, and not me. Break them with a double breaking for their shocking blasphemy in which they defy Almighty God ! So ends this particular message, full of sharp, searching, solemn truth, indicating plainly that, as between the people on the one hand, and the prophet and his Divine Master on the other, matters were hastening to their crisis. 19-27. The remaining portion of this chapter enjoins the sacred observance of the Sabbath, and makes large promises on condition of obedience. Obviously obedience, in this case, is understood to imply obedience in other duties, and the spirit of obedience generally ; else such promises could not attach to it. Besides, it is simply impossible that there can ever be the spirit of obedience in any one thing, and not the general spirit of obedience as to all known duty. The prophet is to proclaim this message specially in the one gate through which the king went in and out, and then in all the gates of the city, as being the place of public resort where people "most did congregate." H. C. 21. From this and the following verses we find the ruin of the Jews attributed to the breach of the Sabbath; as this led to a neglect of sacrifice, the ordinances of religion and all public worship, so it necessarily brought with it all immorality. The breach of the Sabbath was that which let in upon them all the waters of God's wrath. A. C. The meaning of the Sabbath is to be known from the Old Testament alone. The chief passages relating to it are Gen. 2:3; Ex. 20:11; 31:13-17, the essential matter of which is as follows: God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh, and therefore blessed and hallowed this day, on which His work was complete. Hence the people whom He has consecrated to Himself, and who acknowledge the Creator and Lord of the world as their God, are also to hallow the seventh day as a day of rest after every six days' labor in the works of their calling, and this is to be a sign of the covenant between God and His people. These propositions contain the following thoughts: 1. Man, like God, is to work and to rest; thus human life is to be a copy of Divine life. But especially must the people who are called to be the instrument of restoring the Divine order in earthly life be seen to be the peculiar possession of the living God, by an alternation of work and rest corresponding with the rhythm of the Divine life. 2. Divine labor terminates in happy rest; not till the Creator rests satisfied in the contemplation of His works is His creation itself complete. So, too, human labor is not to run on in resultless circles, but to terminate in a happy harmony of existence. The idea of the Sabbath, however, extends farther. That the whole course of human history is not to run on in dreary endlessness; that its events are to have a positive termination; are to find a completion in an harmonious and God-given order—is already guaranteed by the Sabbath of creation and prefigured by the sabbatical seasons. The Divine rest of the seventh day of creation, which has no evening, hovers over the world's progress, that it may at last absorb it into itself. It is upon the very fact that the rest of God is also to be a rest for man, and that God has declared this by the institution of the Sabbath, that Heb. 4 founds a proof for the proposition: "There remaineth a rest for the people of God." Oehler. We regard the Sabbath festival as ante-legal—in other words, as an institution of Paradise. The institution received its legal character for the first time in connection with the giving of the law at Sinai, and lost it again through the love which, in the New Testament, is the fulfilment of the law; but the institution of the Sabbath continued to exist after the law was fulfilled, as it had already existed before the law was given, and it is destined to continue until it has attained to its fulfilment and completion in the eternal Sabbath of the creature. Kurtz. From the very beginning God has seen fit to appoint outward types and emblems of spiritual things and rites of worship. From the beginning one day in seven has been set apart and consecrated to religion. And we know that under the patriarchal and mosaic dispensations there were recognized sanctuaries, places dedicated to worship, where men put off the shoes from their feet because it was holy ground. And as to the teachings of the New Testament we know that our Saviour honored the Sabbath, that He attended the synagogue and took part in its services; and that on two memorable occasions He drove the merchants and money-changers out of the temple which they profaned. If religion is to exist in the world as a spiritual force, it must manifest itself in some outward shape. It must have some local habitation and be incarnated in some visible form. The Gospel of the secular life ignores man's material nature and environment. It is a hyper-spiritualism. It would make us all Quakers. Undoubtedly it is true that the strongest bias of our nature is toward the outward and the material. There is a temptation to put holy water and consecrated oil in place of the spirit; to make the kingdom of God consist in meats and drinks instead of righteousness; and we need to be often reminded that the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and contrite heart. But if there is danger in the direction of ritualism, there is danger also in the direction of Quakerism and mysticism. In this matter the via media is the true and safe way. God is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, but He is to be worshipped; and all sincere worship will find outward expression. It will clothe itself in articulate forms. It will not disdain the use of those means of grace which devout souls have always found helpful. A religion that never goes to church and that contributes nothing to the support of the Gospel may be a very refined and ethereal sort of religion, but it can hardly thrive in this world. It is doubtful whether it will even do its possessor much good, and certainly his light will not shine upon the path of others. The time may come when holiness to the Lord shall be written upon the bells of the horses and there shall be no distinction between sacred and profane, because the earth shall be filled with righteousness and with the glory of the Lord. But that day seems far off. We still need our Sabbaths and our sanctuaries, our sacred places and seasons. They are not religion, but they are helps toward it. Interior. 18: 1, 2 THE word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Arise, and go down 3 to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to 4 the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought his work on the wheels. And when the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. 5, 6 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine 7 hand, O house of Israel. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning 8 a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto 9 them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to 10 build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent 11 of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them. Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his 12 evil way, and amend your ways and your doings. But they say, There is no hope: for we will walk after our own devices, and we will do every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart. 13 Therefore thus saith the LORD: Ask ye now among the nations, who hath heard such 14 things; the virgin of Israel hath done a very horrible thing. Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? or shall the cold waters that flow down from afar be dried up? 15 For my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity; and they have caused them to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in by paths, in a way not cast up; 16 to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby 17 shall be astonished, and shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will look upon their back, and not their face, in the day of their calamity. 18 Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words. 19 Give heed to me, O LORD, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me. 20 Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember how 21 I stood before thee to speak good for them, to turn away thy fury from them. Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their 22 young men smitten of the sword in battle. Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares 23 for my feet. Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me; forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight: but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thou with them in the time of thine anger. 19: 1 Thus said the LORD, Go, and buy a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the elders of 2 the people, and of the elders of the priests; and go forth unto the valley of the son of Hin- nom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell 3 thee : and say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem ; thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, 4 the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom they knew not, they and their fathers and the kings of Judah ; and have filled this place with the blood 5 of innocents ; and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt offerings unto Baal ; which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind : 6 therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called 7 Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter. And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place ; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of them that seek their life : and their carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. 8 And I will make this city an astonishment, and an hissing ; every one that passeth thereby 9 shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof. And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek 10 their life, shall straiten them. Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that 11 go with thee, and shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts : Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again : 12 and they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place to bury. Thus will I do unto this 13 place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, even making this city as Topheth : and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods. 14 Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy ; and he 15 stood in the court of the LORD's house, and said to all the people : Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it ; because they have made their neck stiff, that they might not hear my words. 20 : 1 Now Pashhur the son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in the house of 2 the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. Then Pashhur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in 3 the house of the LORD. And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashhur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The LORD hath not called thy 4 name Pashhur, but Magor-missabib. For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends : and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it : and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword. 5 Moreover I will give all the riches of this city, and all the gains thereof, and all the precious things thereof, yea, all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their 6 enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. And thou, Pashhur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity : and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and there shalt thou be buried, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied falsely. 7 O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived : thou art stronger than I, and hast 8 prevailed : I am become a laughingstock all the day, every one mocketh me. For as often as I speak, I cry out ; I cry, Violence and spoil : because the word of the LORD is made a 9 reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day. And if I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in mine heart as it were a burning fire shut up 10 in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I cannot contain. For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him, say all my familiar friends, they that watch for my halting : peradventure he will be enticed, and we 11 shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him. But the LORD is with me as a mighty one and a terrible : therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail : they shall be greatly ashamed, because they have not dealt wisely, even with an 12 everlasting dishonour which shall never be forgotten. But, O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, that seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them ; for unto 13 thee have I revealed my cause. Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evil-doers. 14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be 15 blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is 16 born unto thee; making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noon- 17 tide; because he slew me not from the womb; and so my mother should have been my 18 grave, and her womb always great. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame? Chap. 18. The prophecies and transactions contained in this and the two following chapters successively hang together, and must be referred to some part of the three first years of the reign of Jehoiakim. The prophet is shown, first, under the type of the potter, God's absolute authority over nations and kingdoms to regulate and alter their condition at His own discretion (verses 1-10). He is then directed to exhort the people to avert the evil designed them by repentance and amendment; and upon their refusal to charge them with the guilt of unprecedented revolt, and to foretell their destruction (verses 11-17). They conspire against him: he protesteth against their unmerited and ungrateful persecution of him, and calleth for justice against them. Blayney. In chaps. 18 and 19 we must recognize symbolic transactions in real life. Here, too, the proof of this lies in the form of the statement: "Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there will I cause thee to hear my words." Here is something to be done before the revelation proper from the Lord even begins. More still to our argument is the implication (verse 6) that the house of Israel are witnesses of what was done by the potter. "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?" This, of course, locates the scene in the external world. So in chap. 19, something is to be actually done in the outer world: "Go and get thee a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, etc., and go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee." A part of this message stands (verses 3-9), and then in verse 10 the Lord said, "Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, and say, Thus saith the Lord, Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again." Here we have the usual criteria of actuality. Things are to be said and done by the prophet—not merely seen in vision; and they are to be said and done before the eyes of the people. There can be no doubt that this is a symbolic transaction. It stands, therefore, as further proof of a constant Divine care and purpose to distinguish between visions and things of actual life, done for the greater effect through the power of symbol. A potter making earthen vessels from clay is the text for this discourse, the great doctrine being that God can mould and shape the destinies of nations with equal ease and with absolute control. 1-4. For the sake of more deeply impressing the truth which the Lord would teach both the prophet and the people, He directs Jeremiah to go down to the workshop of the potter and see him construct his earthen vessel. The reader need scarcely be told that this operation was probably performed then substantially as it is now—i.e., upon a horizontal revolving wheel, the centrifugal force being depended on largely to give shape to the plastic clay. In this case his first efforts did not succeed, and he forthwith massed the same material and made a second effort, assuming of course his right, and showing his power to do anything with his clay that he chose. Using this case as an illustration, the Lord proceeds to assert His analogous right and power to determine and shape the destiny of nations at His pleasure. Let it be noted that this illustration is not used here to show that God makes and moulds the free moral activities of men, even the free action of their will, according to His absolute pleasure, allowing to them no more responsibility or activity than the clay has in the potter's hand. This is neither asserted nor implied here. This is not by any means the point of the comparison; but the point is, as we shall soon see, that God can speak concerning a nation to pull it down and destroy it, or to build it up, and instantly the agencies of His providence prove themselves perfectly adequate for this result. With infinite ease He can say this and do it. The reader will specially note the bearing of this case upon the theory of interpretation held by some which assumes that where inspired prophets were commanded to go and to do, it was going and doing in vision only, and not in actual fact. Was not this most obviously a fact? Was not this man at the wheel a living, working potter, and the whole thing a scene in the outward living world? How can this be rationally doubted? H. C. We have, like Jeremiah, in the words of Scripture, gone down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. Before him is a revolving horizontal disk; beside him a heap of clay. Seizing a handful of the clay, he throws it down, a rude, unformed, shapeless mass, on the flying wheel; and how curious it is to see that lump, as it spins round and round, begin at the touch of his skilful fingers to lose its shapelessness, assume a definite form, and by and by swell out and rise up into a vessel of perfect proportions. It is more than curious; it is instructive. One cannot watch the plastic clay growing to the workman's will and touch into a vessel for common or sacred uses, for roughest hands or jewelled fingers, without seeing God in the potter, and man in the clay—feeling the beauty of Scripture figures, and how much ourselves and fortunes are in the hands of Him who said, "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel." Shall the thing made say of him that made it, Why hast thou made me thus? T. Guthrie. 1-6. Than in this passage nowhere do we get a more striking view of the general method of the Divine dealings with the human race. It suggests: God's absolute sovereignty over the being and life of every man. The figure of the potter and the clay is one of frequent occurrence in Holy Scripture. (See Job 10:9; Isa. 64:8; Rom. 9:10.) It vividly represents the subjection of our nature and our personal history to the Divine control. The fact of our moral freedom, the mysterious prerogative that belongs to us of choosing and following our own way, must needs make the comparison defective. There is some point at which all such physical analogies fail duly to set forth the realities of moral and spiritual life. But it is deeply true as suggestive of the power God has over us to mould us as He pleases. Free as our will may be, is not our whole nature as plastic material in the hands of Him who made us? Free as we may be to pursue our own chosen course of life, can we ever escape the "Divinity that shapes our ends"? There is a hidden power, whether we acknowledge it or not, the mastery of which over thought, feeling, purpose and action is the deepest reality of our existence. His formative purpose. Distinguish between a sovereign power and one that is arbitrary and capricious. Complete as the Divine mastery over us may be, it is not lawless or purposeless. It has always a definite end in view, and that end is wise and holy and good. As the potter seeks to fashion the clay into some beautiful or useful form that his own brain has first conceived, so God, by His providential and spiritual control, seeks to work out a Divine idea in our being and life, to body forth in us some archetype of moral beauty that exists in His own eternal mind. He would fain fashion us into a noble form and fit us for some noble use. In God's "great house" there are many utilities. And even the vessel "unto dishonor" has its place and its purpose. Our faith in the infinitely wise and holy love that governs all leads us to rest in the thought: "That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete." But He who formed us for Himself would not have any of us to be content with an inferior position and a lower aim. He would so mould and fashion us that we shall be "vessels unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use" (2 Tim. 2:21). His long-suffering patience. When the potter's work is marred, he presses the clay into a shapeless mass and casts it upon the wheel again. We are reminded of the various methods God employs in moulding us to His will, and how if one fails He will often subject us to another. There are events that sometimes break up the whole form of a man's life; old ties are severed, old associations pass away; he begins an altogether new career, with new responsibilities, new moral tests, new possibilities of good. There are afflictions that change the whole tenor of a man's inward life; his spirit is crushed, wounded, softened, that it may the better receive Divine impressions. "God maketh my heart soft," etc. (Job 23:16). "My heart is like wax" (Ps. 22:14). Thus does God "humble us to prove us, to know what is in our heart, whether we will keep His commandments or not" (De. 8:2). There may come a time when all these Divine methods fail and the soul is found to be reprobate. In chap. 19:1-11 we have a figurative prophecy of the ultimate abandonment of the Jewish people to their fate. In this case the vessel has been baked in the fire; it is incapable of taking a new shape, and is broken so "that it cannot be made whole again." Such is the doom of the finally impenitent and intractable. But God's patience is very wonderful. In this world at least the door of mercy is always open. There is always the possibility of a new and nobler life. He "is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9). W. God has absolute authority over us. He has the ultimate right of supreme sovereignty to do as He will with His subjects. Yet there is nothing alarming in this fact, but rather an infinite consolation. For God is not a heartless despot, displaying arbitrary power by mere caprice; He is holy, and exercises His sovereignty according to principles of strict justice, truth and right. He is gracious, and rules with purposes of love for the good of His creatures. Our dependence on God is, like that of the infant on its mother, the security of our own welfare. Those applications of the doctrine of Divine sovereignty which attribute to it designs that would be accounted cruel in any responsible being are blasphemous insults to the impartial justice and love of God's character. If God's actions are not limited by any physical compulsion or constitutional law, they are governed by His regard to eternal righteousness and by the beneficence of His nature. Adeney. As the clay is in the potter's hand to destroy the incipient form of one vessel and to mould it into a new and better one, so are the nations of men in God's hand, to mar and destroy, or to build up and bless at His pleasure. This is the point of the comparison. There is no occasion to deny that this involves various agencies of Divine providence upon the free moral activities of men. Such agencies God is every day exerting, yet with no infringement upon the freedom of the human will. God here shows that He exercises His agency so as to meet their moral state precisely, sparing the penitent and destroying the incorrigibly wicked. H. C. The purpose of God with regard to man is essentially and persistently a creative one. The first effort of the potter is formative; and when, through the marring of the vessel, he has to reduce the clay into the lump again, there still remains an intention to form anew. The effects of sin are shown to be profound from the fact that the potter is obliged to remake what has been marred. The effort of restoring love succeeds upon another, and "where sin abounded grace did much more abound" (Rom. 5:20). There is no nation which has not had many opportunities of recovering its position and influence forfeited by unfaithfulness and unbelief, and there is no sinner hardened in his sins who has not repeatedly rejected a heavenly voice. Each proclamation of God's Word is a fresh opportunity which may avail for salvation to every one who will embrace it. M. Our wisdom is to turn from our hardness and impenitent hearts, and allow God to lead us into the full μετὰνοσα (Rom. 2:4). Then with understanding shall we address God, "We are the clay, and Thou our potter" (Isa. 64:8). If we by repentance come back to God and make ourselves clay, such as will have in it a peculiar responsiveness to the touch of God, then we may leave ourselves to His loving-kindness. He will fashion us into just that shape whereby we shall be meet for the Master's service. And if men say in their ignorance that we are turning out but vessels of dishonor, let us recollect that of honor and dishonor God alone is judge. If we only stoop from our pride to do the will of God, God will take care of our position. For is not God He who exalts the humble and abases the proud? Y. Every life has not the same purpose. The potter makes vessels of innumerable shapes. Yet each life is successful as its own particular purpose is fulfilled. A life is no failure because it is lowly and put only to lowly uses so long as it attains the end for which God designed it. It is important to note that God's first work with us is in forming our own souls aright. The first question is not as to what we do, but as to what we are. The potter is making vessels; God is making characters, souls, lives. After this we may be put to some further end—used for good after we have been made right, as the vessel is of service after the potter has done his work with it. Adeney. 7-10. God's action determined by man's conduct. These verses may be read as balancing those that precede. The illustration of the potter at his work shows us simply the Divine side of life. The following verses take us round to the human side, and the human conditions in accordance with which God exercises the rights and power of His absolute sovereignty. God does not act blindly, inconsiderately, on general principles alone, without regard to individual cases, nor with one changeless course irrespective of the changes in the behavior of His creatures. He takes note of these changes and modifies His treatment of men by their varying requirements. This fact is not derogatory to the absolute sovereignty of God. A just sovereign considers his people. God acts according to His own will; but His will, though inflexible in moral principles, varies in the choice of particular actions according as the application of those principles varies with the circumstances of the world. This fact is not inconsistent with the definiteness of the purposes of God. The potter has his definite design, yet he proceeds with his work to the conclusion or breaks up the clay and begins again, according as he finds it plastic or brittle. Adency. God does not threaten evil because He is resolved to inflict it, rather, He threatens it that we may by our repentance prevent it, and so He may not inflict it. "He foretelleth," saith Chrysostom, "what He will bring upon us for this very purpose, that He may not bring it upon us; and warneth before He striketh to make us careful to avoid the stroke." God sends His servants, the prophets, to threaten vengeance against sinners, not thereby to drive them from hope of mercy, but to draw them to repentance and humiliation. Nor is it to be accounted among the least of God's mercies that, when He might in His just displeasure overwhelm us in the very act of sin, yet He forbeareth and forewarneth, foretelleth and threateneth us before He punish; that if we will take any warning, He may do better to us than He hath said, and not bring upon us what He hath threatened. Bp. Sanderson. From these verses we may infer that God's promises in Scripture, however uttered in general terms, are yet for the most part to be understood conditionally, according as men behave themselves. And as God did justly reject those Jews who refused to embrace the Gospel, notwithstanding the general promises He had made to that people, so neither can particular Christians nor churches lay any claim to God's general promise of preserving His Church any further than as they adhere to that rule of faith and manners which He hath prescribed to them in His holy word. W. Lowth. It is righteousness alone that exalteth a nation. Repentance toward God, flowing from faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, is the only effectual means for preventing the ruin of a sinful people. Without this we may obtain a temporary respite from punishment; but the clouds will return again after the rain; and all the while we are filling up the measure of our iniquity, the consumption is advancing, and every day we draw nearer and nearer to dissodissolution. Whereas, if we accept of the punishment of our iniquity, and put away from us those evil doings which provoke the Lord to jealousy, then may we hope that He will return to us in mercy, and rejoice over us to bless us and to do us good according to this encouraging promise. R. W. The Bible is pervaded by the idea of nations as moral personalities, as true political or organic entities, as moral powers to whom are addressed the most solemn admonitions, the most emphatic warnings of a retribution that will surely come, though, it may be, generations, and even ages, after the then composing individual masses have passed away from the earthly existence. Along with this appears everywhere that other idea of the Messianic lordship. It is so distinctly set forth that any nation denying it, or refusing its acknowledgment in some way, by word or deed, must be regarded as having forfeited the Christian name. The passages are too numerous to be cited. . . . God, law and retribution are the articles that enter into the theology of every nation. To the Christian State there belongs a fourth, without which it utterly forfeits the Christian title. This is the article of Messiah's dominion, or the rule of One as God's vicegerent, whom He hath appointed Judge of the nations, and to whom "there is given," for this end, "all power in heaven and upon the earth." T. Lewis. Without religion no nation can feel itself secure. Ungodliness provokes the anger of the Lord, and, like Israel of old, the nation that neglects religion and gives itself up to iniquity, will not be able to stand before its enemies. It may truly be said of such, their defence is departed from them, for, by so doing, they incur the displeasure of Him who is the only sure defence and refuge in the day of trouble. Warriors and statesmen may affect to despise all this, while they put their trust in human wisdom and prowess, but God can soon teach them that it is religion alone that can render a country truly invincible; and that the prayers of the godly are more to be trusted than swords of steel—the sighs of true penitence a surer safeguard than all the thunders of artillery. Religion is, in truth, "the cheap defence of nations." Symington. The constructive and positive power, which by a slow and persistent process builds society up into a temple of order, truth and justice—this it is which the world has, in all past ages, been groping after. Christianity is this power, and no other has yet been discovered, or ever will be. It is light streaming out from God; it is the inbreathing love of God; it is holy Sabbaths, and voices of prayer, and hymns of praise, and the prophet-teacher speaking as God's voice to men—these with all the charities, and good works, and gentle ministries, and deeds of righteous magistracy, and regenerative public cares—these, which altogether are the meaning of the word religion—these, and these only, can make a State prosperous and happy. Bushnell. The State needs a morality. She cannot with any consistency refuse to recognize the morality which the majority of her citizens consider as the true and the Divine. That morality, in the Christian system, is a portion—a vital portion indeed, but not the entirety of the Christian religion. The State as a State takes for its secular uses the morality, but is compelled also in the oath, the rest-day and the marriage contract to give a distant nod of recognition to religion, as furnishing the requisite sanctions of this morality. But while the State in mass stops short with the morality, the several citizens of the State, in their individual immortality and in their accountability beyond the bounds of this world, have larger and more lasting wants than the collective State; they need personally and of free conviction to adopt the religion. And without a large, active, prayerful and resolute body of such citizens, so holding individually the religion, the morality of the State will not be kept in working order. The State may indeed have no conscience of her own; but unless her citizens many of them keep a conscience, she is lost. Christ does not need the State, but the State needs Christ as the base and bond of her morality, without which she cannot shape or keep her political life. And every man, woman and child in the State needs Christ, as the Ruler, Owner and Redeemer of the soul for both worlds and for all days, here and beyond. And He, the Thrice Blessed, invites them to His salvation. William R. Williams. 11,12. God changes the way of His providential proceeding according to the carriage of the creature, without changing His will, which is the rule of His providence. When God speaks of His repenting that He had made man (Gen. 6 : 6), it is only His changing His conduct from a way of kindness to a way of severity, and is a word suited to our capacities to signify His detestation of sin and His resolution to punish it, after man had made himself quite another thing than God had made him. "It repents Me"—that is, I am purposed to destroy the world, as he that repents of his work throws it away; as if a potter cast away the vessel he had framed, it were a testimony that he repented that ever he took pains about it; so the destruction of them seems to be a repentance in God that ever He made them; it is a change of events, not of counsels. Repentance in us is a grief for a former fact, and a changing of our course in it. Grief is not in God, but His repentance is a willing a thing should not be as it was, which will was fixed from eternity; for God, foreseeing man would fall, and decreeing to permit it, He could not be said to repent in time of what He did not repent from eternity; and, therefore, if there were no repentance in God from eternity, there could be none in time. Charnock. These verses plainly teach that all God's threatenings, even the most terrible, and all God's promises, even the most blessed, are conditional on the continuance of the moral character to which they were addressed. When one would give the alarm of fire he does not whisper the word. So when God would warn sinners He does not soften His words, but in most vivid manner sets before men the awful doom of the ungodly. Thus would God, by His terrors, affright men—if naught else will do—to "flee from the wrath to come," so that "He may repent of the evil He thought to do unto them." Such words are not the utterance of absolute decrees against any soul to whom they are addressed, but loving warnings to such soul to turn to God and live. C. 11. Amend (or make good) your ways and your doings. It has been well said that "there is nothing at all in life except what we put there." God has given us far more liberty than we usually suppose; He has put at our command immense resources, and told us to go on and use them to the best advantage. We can throw them away if we choose, or we can make of them wealth inestimable. He has given us the potter's wheel and ample beds of clay, to do with as we please. But there is no value in this wealth of means unless it is used for right ends. It is, in truth, not wealth until it is utilized. Life can be a bubble, a vacancy, a failure, if we so will it. It can be a solid world of worth, and a success if we so will it. God has made man in His own image; and in so doing He has made him, in a sense, his own creator. S. S. T. There are but two principles of moral life in the universe: one which makes ourselves, or the most limited private good, the centre; the other which makes God, who may be called the universal good, the centre. And by that necessary law which says, Where there is life there must be a principle of life; when one of these principles dies, the other emerges from its state of abeyance and inactivity, and takes the place of that which has passed away. So that when self dies in the soul, God lives; when self is annihilated, God is enthroned. So it must be that either self or God shall occupy the throne of the heart. If self, then the life is regulated from a selfish standpoint. If God is at the helm, then everything will move Godward. We should never be satisfied unless God is on the throne. F. W. Upham. Much may be made of slender gifts, small resources and limited opportunities, if carefully cultivated as they should be, and as their slenderness should stimulate their being. The most largely endowed has no more obligation and no fairer field than the most slenderly gifted lies under and possesses. God, who has builded up the towering Alps out of mica flakes, builds up His Church out of infinitesimally small particles—slenderly endowed men, touched by the consecration of His love. If we truly employ whatever gifts God has given to us, then we shall be accepted according to that we have and not according to that we have not. The wholesome old proverb, “Many mickles make a muckle” is as true about the influence brought to bear in this world to arrest evil and to sweeten corruption as it is about anything else. Christ has a great deal more need of the cultivation of the small patches that He gives to most of us than He has of the cultivation of the large estates that He bestows upon a few. Responsibility is not to be measured by amount of gift, but is equally stringent, entire and absolute whatsoever be the measure of the endowments from which it arises. A. M. The most successful man is not the man who acquires the most money, power, place, honor or fame, but the man who gains the most manhood, and performs the greatest amount of useful work in the discharge of human duty, whose life is most replete with useful purpose and well-directed effort. Anon. More sublime than sculptured stone, or snow-crowned Alps, or sweetest music, or richest rhetoric is a noble life. Manhood dwarfs the most magnificent of things inanimate. Royalty of spirit may be uninvested with the circumstances of external grandeur. The noble heart may look out upon the world through a face that is homely. It may move upon a plane that is lowly. It may spend its energies upon endeavors that are ordinary. Its possessor may be “in bodily presence weak, and in speech contemptible,” but let head and hand and heart be welded together in the furnace glow of a lofty and uplifting purpose, and men recognize the king. Howard Duffield. Let this and every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and let every setting sun be to you as its close; let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others—some goodly strength or knowledge gained for yourselves. Ruskin. 12. This subtle resort to the plea of no hope indicates a deep-seated love of sin and a willingness to cheat one’s own soul out of the blessings that God proffers rather than be disturbed in the ways and pleasures of sin. H. C.—This assertion in the meaning designed by those who thus responded to the prophet’s solemn annunciation, and as uttered or cherished in similar meaning by any and all others unto this day, is accurately true. That meaning was simply a deliberate resolve of continuance in their long-accustomed evil way. There is no hope, they truly said. If we may not be delivered unless we return from and change our way of life, we must utterly despair of deliverance, for we are resolved that we will submit to no restraint, “we will walk after our own devices, we will every one do every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart.” And the inward thought of all who are thus resolved is, though they dare not speak it out, We will venture the issue with the Almighty. And of those who take this bold, defiant position, it is true that there is no hope. The whole Word of God affirms it—the character, the law, the very grace of God, require and declare that they who wilfully assume this position must abide its consequences, and die in their sins. B. 14. The idea is, that Lebanon, lifting its crest into the regions of perpetual snow, supplies to the fields within its range the purest, cool, luscious water all the year, even as God supplies good for His trusting people; and it is therefore sheer folly for men to forsake God, or fear that He will fail to supply their need. H. C.—One of the most striking scenes visible from a great distance is Hermon, with its snow and vapors. It is covered with white snow all the year round, and from its summits flow down cold, pent-up streams to the valley beneath. God asks why Israel has forsaken Him; whether there was any failure of His grace and power. Has He not been constant and ever ready to help? How is it, then, that He is forsaken? The snow of Lebanon is, like the dew of Hermon, a symbol of the grace of God abiding upon Zion, from which the streams of grace flow forth in inexhaustible supply. M. 18. Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices. The people to whom Jeremiah had delivered his message from God seem to have been incensed against him on much the same ground as the Jews were in aftertimes against our Saviour and His apostles. They had persuaded themselves that God had intended for them a perpetual establishment; and would accordingly provide them with a constant succession of men in all departments to preserve and maintain the general welfare—viz., priests to direct all matters of law and religion; wise statesmen to manage their civil concerns, and prophets to make known to them the immediate will of God on all important and extraordinary occasions. Upon this presumption they inferred that Jeremiah, who foretold the contrary, was a false prophet, and as such they determined to punish him. Blayney.—The people turn against Jeremiah to counteract his mission, and to accuse him before the civil authorities, “smiting him with the tongue.” They will not believe his affirmation that their priests, wise men and prophets were deceiving them, and really had no word from the Lord. 19,20. The prophet looks to his God for help in this emergency. He implores the Lord to hear what they say against him. He bears his case to God with confidence, because conscious of having sought to do right, faithfully and benevolently as toward both God and the people. He had done them good; shall they be allowed to requite him with evil? 21-23. The spirit of this prayer is due to the prophet’s deep sympathy with truth and righteousness; to his sense of what the cause and honor of God demand, and to his consciousness that he had honestly and with much benevolent self-sacrifice labored to reclaim and save the people, albeit they were proving themselves hopelessly and madly incorrigible. Hence what else could he do? Shall he succumb and make up his mind to let wickedness rule in rampant defiance of God and of all righteousness? Nay, verily, there are sometimes imperative reasons why guilty men should be given up to exterminating judgments. Justice demands it, and even Mercy has no more to say in bar or even delay of retribution. H. C. It is important to remember that he is distinctly conscious of having had good motives toward these enemies. He knew that God meant their good, and he, in speaking, had meant the same. It must be noticed also that, whatever his feelings, he expresses them as a prayer to God. He does not take retaliation into his own hands. His rights and interests, whatever they are, he leaves in the hands of Jehovah. He has, indeed, his own estimate as to what his enemies deserve; but he seeks that they may get their deserts in the way of manifestly Divine judgments. Y. Chap. 19. This chapter and the next are closely connected in time and occasion, the former being the prophetic message and the latter a history of some of its results in the persecution of Jeremiah and his consequent mental conflicts. The horrid forms of the existing idolatry, as well as the persecution of the prophet, must locate it in time after Josiah’s death, and indeed down very near to the end of the kingdom. The siege described (verse 9) must have been the final one in the time of Zedekiah. Probably this message did not precede the final siege by any long interval. The occasion is one: its circumstances are solemnly impressive and significant. The prophet is directed to purchase an earthen bottle; to take some of the elders of the people and of the priests with him to Tophet in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and there deliver his message, predicting the utter ruin of the city, fearful slaughter, terrible famine, burying in Tophet till there shall be no more room for graves; and then to break the bottle before their eyes as a symbol of the complete though temporary destruction of the city and nation. He then returns from Tophet to the city; goes into the Temple, and there repeats before all the people the substance of this fearful threatening. H. C. 1-11. Parables need not be in words; they may be acted; and sometimes men inspired of God have, instead of telling, acted them with dramatic power. “Go,” said the Lord to Jeremiah, “and get a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests; and go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee.” To his summons they assemble, and the preacher appears—nor book, nor speech in hand, but an earthen vessel. He addresses them. Pointing across the valley to Jerusalem, with busy thousands in its streets, its massive towers and noble Temple, glorious and beautiful beneath a southern sky, he says, speaking as an ambassador of God: “I will make this city desolate, and a hissing: every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss: I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, in the siege and straitness wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them." He pauses, raises his arm, holds up the potter's vessel, dashes it on the ground, and, planting his foot on its shivered fragments, he adds: "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Even so will I break this people and this city as one breaketh a potter's vessel." The scene, the aspect of the man, the beautiful but fragile vase, the crash, the shivered fragments, these all-important aids to the speaker, were calculated to make an impression through the senses and the fancy, much deeper than the mere message could possibly have done. Guthrie. This chapter is filled with these awful warnings of the prophet. And they are made the more awful by the reflection that, fitted as they were to rouse the most careless and hardened, yet they failed with those to whom they were addressed. And so this sad chapter teaches us such lessons as these: The earnest purpose of God to save man from his sin. Hence these warnings. The awfully hardening power of the sin which could despise them. What wise methods are to be employed in the endeavor to arouse and alarm the ungodly. C. 4, 5. "They have filled the place with the blood of innocent ones." This can mean nothing less than burning to death great multitudes of young children. Is it strange that God should doom the nation to a most fearful ruin as the least He could do to express His detestation of these murders, and as His only hope for redeeming a remnant from idolatry, since the nation as such were demoralized by this sin past hope? 7,8. So usually in God's order the cup of madness comes before the cup of doom. First wisdom and then might would fail them. That the city should not only be desolate, but be an object of scorn to all passers-by, indicates that the Gentile nations had some general knowledge of the guilt and crimes which had provoked God to these fearful visitations of His wrath. A great city and a strong nation blotted out from among the nations, and lying desolate for seventy years, must be in any age of the world a fearfully solemn and impressive moral lesson, testifying before even heathen minds to the wrath of their gods. Must we not suppose that to some extent they knew the ingratitude, the rebellion against their own God, the horrible immoralities and the murders of innocent children which had called forth His vengeance? 9. This very doom—parents eating the flesh of their offspring—had been predicted long before as Jehovah's curse upon them for these sins. (See Lev. 26: 29 and De. 28: 53.) This siege continued one year and a half (Jer. 52: 4-7), "Until the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land." In his Lamentations (4: 10) the prophet has recorded the fulfilment of this dreadful doom: "The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people." Verily the hand of retributive justice was in this, that parents who had thrust their own sons and daughters into the fire to burn them to death for Baal and Moloch should be straitened by war, siege and famine, to boil and eat their own children! H. C. 11. As the bottle was easily, irresistibly and irrecoverably broken, so shall Judah and Jerusalem be broken by the Chaldean army (verse 11). They depended much upon the firmness of their constitution and the fixedness of their courage, which they thought hardened them like a vessel of brass; but the prophet shows that all that did but harden them like a vessel of earth, which, though hard, is brittle, and sooner broken than that which is not so hard. Though they were made vessels of honor, still they were vessels of earth, and so they shall be made to know, if they dishonor God and themselves, and serve not the purposes for which they were made. It is God Himself who made them, that resolves to unmake them: I will break this people, and this city—dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel—the doom of the heathen (Ps. 2: 9; Rev. 2: 27); but now Jerusalem's doom (Isa. 30: 14). A potter's vessel, when once broken, cannot be made whole again—cannot be cured, so the word is. The ruin of Jerusalem shall be an utter ruin; no hand can repair it but His that broke it; and if they return to Him, though He has torn, He will heal. 12. "I will make this city as Tophet." As they had filled the valley of Tophet with the slain which they sacrificed to their idols, so God will fill the whole city with the slain, that shall fall as sacrifices to the justice of God. 15. Whatever men may think to the contrary, the executions of Providence will fully answer the predictions of the word; and God will appear as terrible against sin and sinners as the Scripture makes Him; nor shall the unbelief of men make either His promise or His threatenings of no effect. H. The people are repeatedly apprised that these judgments are coming, and must come because they are hardening their heart and refusing to hear the words of the Lord. Everything here indicates that the great crisis is at hand. The threatened judgments have nearly reached the climax of horrors. Their very recital makes one's ears tingle! What must the dread reality have been? Verily, the Lord is a God of judgment; and hardened sinners have cause to tremble before Him! H. C. Chap. 20 is a continuation of chap. 19. 1,2. Pashur's unjust displeasure against Jeremiah, and the fruits of that displeasure (verses 1, 2). This Pashur was a priest, and therefore, one would think, should have protected Jeremiah, who was of his own order, a priest too; and the more because he was a prophet of the Lord, whose interests the priests, his ministers, ought to consult; but this priest was a persecutor of him whom he should have patronized. H.—This Pashur was not the man who bears the same name in 21:1—this being the son of Immer; that, the son of Melchiah. This man was head prefect of the Temple, the priest who had the general supervision there. This may have been the first case of personal violence to the prophet. The "stocks" were an instrument contrived not merely to confine the person, but to torture it as well. The original word implies this—a wrench, made to twist and distort the body out of any natural, easy posture. H. C. Pashur was a priest and of high rank in the service of the Temple of Jehovah. Such a man should have been able to recognize a true prophet of Jehovah as his fellow-servant. Yet he was first in persecuting him. Pashur was a responsible officer of justice. Such a man should not have allowed himself to be carried away by a flood of popular indignation, influences of class jealousy or impulses of personal spite. Judicial crimes are always the most atrocious crimes. They poison justice at its very fountain, they abuse high trusts, they disorganize society. Pashur replied to the words of prophecy with the arm of force. He could not answer Jeremiah, so he attempted to repress him. Unable to refute the arguments of the prophet, he endeavored to restrain the utterance of them. Here we recognize the folly, the injustice and the cruelty of such persecution: the folly, for to silence a voice is not to destroy the unpleasant truth it declares; injustice, for nothing can be more unfair than to do violence to a man for uttering words which we cannot deny to be true; and cruelty, for it is a man's duty to make known what he believes to be important truths. Adeney. 3. After one day's confinement and torture, Pashur brought Jeremiah forth. Undaunted by this torture, Jeremiah announces to his tormentor a new and terrible word from the Lord for him personally. The name Pashur signifies "security round about." The Lord does not give him that name—certainly not any longer—but "fear round about," a name significant of his doom—referred to in the following verses. H. C. We do not find that, when Pashur put Jeremiah in the stocks, the latter gave him any check for what he did; he appears to have quietly and silently submitted to the abuse; when he suffered, he threatened not; but when he brought him out of the stocks, then God put a word into the prophet's mouth which would awaken his conscience if he had any. For when the prophet of the Lord was bound, the word of the Lord was not. What can we think Pashur aimed at in smiting and abusing Jeremiah? Whatever it is, we shall see by what God says to him that he is disappointed. H. 7-18. The remaining verses of this chapter are personal to Jeremiah, recording his own experiences, his prayer and his language addressed to God. In order to judge him fairly, we must bear in mind that, in addition to the unceasing trial of failure in his efforts to reclaim and save the people, in addition also to scorn and reproach from every quarter, he had now spent one day in torture, and came forth only to confront his arch persecutor with another message of terror from the Lord. H. C.—There are many such photographs of the inner heart-life of God's people. It is the touch of nature which brings them near to us. The words and work of Jeremiah become more living and influential when we witness his spiritual struggles. M. 7. The true meaning is, "Thou didst persuade me"—i.e., to undertake the prophetic work, quite against my wish and preference, but I yielded; "Thou wert stronger than I, and didst prevail," for in this struggle I could not decide against Thy will, expressed so clearly and so strongly. Yet he goes on to say, "Although I entered upon this work only under the strong pressure of Thy command, I have been in derision all the time; every one mocks me." H. C. O Lord, Thou hast deceived me. The original word here may signify to "persuade" or "allure," and that by fair, as well as by indirect means. The passage alludes to that encouragement which the prophet received from God, either at his first appointment (chap. 1:7, 8, 17-19), or afterward, when he began to complain of hardships (chap. 15:19-21). The meaning, therefore, of the prophet's words in this place is consistent with the most perfect piety and reverence toward God, who, he says, had prevailed on him to undertake an honorable though painful employment, and had encouraged him to go on with it by assurances which he acknowledges to have been made good (verses 11-13), notwithstanding the unmerited scorn and reproaches of his countrymen had often tempted him to wish that he could withdraw himself out of the way (verses 8, 9). Blayney. Verses 8-11 furnish an effective illustration of the comparative excellence of the Revised Version. The reader can readily make the comparison. B. 9. Then the thought comes up (the temptation, shall we not call it ?), "I will prophesy no more; I will not name the Lord to this people again. But the present hand of God upon me—is in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones"—a most vivid account of the intense pressure of his convictions of duty and of his sense of a present God pressing him on in his work. H. C. Many an earnest ministering spirit has felt like this, overborne by the force of the world's evil, impatient of the slow progress of the kingdom of truth and righteousness. But the prophet cannot so easily throw up his work. God, as at the beginning, is "stronger than he," and holds him firmly in His grasp; holds him to his office and ministry by the force not so much of outward circumstance as of a spiritual persuasion by the strong necessity of an inward law. W. The risk of unfaithfulness is put beyond Jeremiah's control. He is put between two great "cannots." He cannot bear the reproaches of the people. That on the one hand. But, on the other hand, he finds that he cannot keep unexpressed the message of Jehovah. God takes His Word into His own keeping. The pain of prophesying, great as it was, was less than the pain of withholding the prophecy. It is ever a mark of God's true servants, that in times when there is great need of testimony they cannot keep silent. Better to burn at the stake than to have one's true, inner life burned up in resisting God. Y. In like manner Paul says of himself, that "necessity was laid upon him, so that woe would be to him if he preached not the Gospel, the dispensation of which was committed unto him" (1 Cor. 9:16, 17). The psalmist makes use of the like expression, "the fire burned," to denote the inward agitation he felt, while he endeavored to stifle the sentiments which labored for utterance (Ps. 39:3). Blayney. The same experience is felt by all men who have spiritual relations with truth. They do not hold truth; they find that truth holds them. The reason of this is found in the real presence of the Spirit of God. Revelation is by inspiration, and inspiration is the breathing of God's Spirit into a man's spirit, so that he becomes possessed by it. The tremendous importance of the truth revealed increases this compulsion of utterance. Jeremiah had revealed to him no barren, abstract dogmas, no trivial religious notions, no empty answers to curious, prying questions of little practical moment, but terrible truths concerning his people and their highest interests. How could he hide such truths as we have seen he had been entrusted with? If God speaks it must be to utter important words. The burden of them urges their custodian to declare them. Adeney. There is only one source from which the enthusiasm of the Gospel ministry can come, and that is a deep and ever deeper Christian life of our own. Live deeper. Let God do more for you. Be sure that you have not begun to reach the limits of what He can do. Give Him a larger liberty to help you; and then the thought that any man should go unhelped by Him will seem dreadful to you, and you must speak so that men will hear. Bp. Brooks.—The preacher's words had power because they accorded with his thoughts, had reality and depth because they harmonized with the life he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls pure and rich had been dissolved into the precious draught. Hawthorne. The Incarnate Son of God bids us disciple all the nations and preach the Gospel to every creature. Shall we not do it? Oh, for the Pentecostal breath and the flaming tongues of fire! Oh, for the vision which Stephen had in the hour of his martyrdom! Oh, for the flaming feet of the Master in all our assemblies, and the passion of His speech, as showing us His pierced side and palms! He says: "All this I suffered for thee; what hast thou done for Me?" That question made Zinzendorf the pioneer of modern missions; that question ringing in our ears will sandal our feet for the world's evangelization. Come again, to each one of us, O Thou Incarnate Son of God, that we may count it our supreme joy to live, and toil, and die for Thee! Behrends. If we have found Christ for ourselves, we shall undoubtedly wish to speak forth our knowledge of His love. Convictions which are deep demand expression. Emotion which is strong needs utterance. If our hearts have any fervor of love to Christ in them, it will be as natural to tell it forth as tears are to sorrow or smiles to happiness. True, there is a reticence in profound feeling, and sometimes the deepest love can only "love and be silent," and there is a just suspicion of loud or vehement protestations of Christian emotion, as of any emotion. But for all that, it remains true that a heart warmed with the love of Christ needs to express its love, and will give it forth, as certainly as light must radiate from its centre or heat from a fire. The possession of the Gospel imposes the obligation to impart it. All our possessions are trusts, but especially is this the case in regard to our religion. "God hath shined into our hearts" that we may to others "give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." We are bound to impart the Gospel by our common humanity; for the possessions of each are for the good of all. We are bound by loyalty to Jesus Christ, who will have us make plain who is our master. He is a coward who hides his colors. No church commission or sanction is needed. God makes men preachers, in the true sense of the word, by making them Christians; and there can be no more stringency given to the obligation to proclaim Christ than it already possesses, though all the churches were to summon to the work, or the angel that impelled Peter on the road to Cesarea were to lay his hand on our shoulders. The necessity of utterance accompanies all deep convictions about moral or religious matters; and if a Christian man has never felt that God's word is as a fire in his bones, which must have vent, he has need to ask himself whether he is a Christian. God forbid that we should say that such men are not; but, if they are, they certainly are very imperfectly so. A. M. 10. The terribly bitter thing to the heart of this loving prophet was that those who stood in the relations of friendship and protection to him had turned so cruelly against him. H. C. 13. Jeremiah closes his prayer with praise. No sooner has he asked for God's help than he feels so assured of receiving it that he anticipates it in imagination, and breaks forth into grateful song as though he were already enjoying it. This is a proof of genuine faith. Faith makes the absent seem near and the future appear. Adeney. 14-18. Divested of its poetical heightening, all that the prophet says amounts only to this: that the man who had brought his father the tidings of his birth had been, in reality, the messenger of ill news instead of good; for that, as things had turned out with him, it would have been a kinder and more charitable office to have strangled him in the womb than to have assisted in bringing him into the world to lead a life of so much bitterness and disquietude. W. Lowth, Dr. Blayney. Jeremiah was making the huge blunder of looking at things entirely from the point of view of his own feelings, and his present feelings. His actions were better than his words. Speaking out of his own feelings, he talked great folly; speaking as the prophet of God, his utterances were those of wisdom and truth. The fact was that of no one belonging to his generation could it be more truly said than of him that his birth was a good thing; good for the nation, good for himself, good for the glory and service of Jehovah. We must not bemoan existence because there is suffering in it. Suffering may be very protracted and intense, and yet life be full of blessing. Y. Jeremiah and Elijah had seasons of being strong in the Lord, and also seasons of being sadly weak in the Lord, or rather weak through not being just then very much in the Lord, but rather in the flesh, and under the control of a prostrate nervous system. Elijah one day faces down eight hundred idol prophets, and sees them laid dead at his feet; but the tax on his nervous energy was exhausting, and the next day he fears a single woman, and flies for his life, and even begs that God will take him out of the world. These verses are a sad record of the spirit of Jeremiah; for, after making all the allowance we can for these words of his on the score of Oriental usage, and on the score of their manifest imitation of Job's imprecations upon the day of his birth (Job 3), we cannot bring them into harmony with the sweet spirit of trust in God's love and universal providence, which it is the Christian's privilege and glory to maintain through every possible extreme of earthly trial. Very probably Jeremiah had it in mind to compare his case tacitly with that of Job, and to say within himself, If Job had occasion to utter such imprecations upon the day of his birth, and upon all the parties who either had or might have had any agency there, fully as much, or more, have I; but this view of the case, though it may suggest the occasion, fails to justify the spirit of such words. H. C. When grace has got the victory, it is good to remember the struggles of corruption, that we may be ashamed of ourselves and our own folly, may admire the goodness of God in not taking us at our word, and may be warned by it to double our guard upon our spirits another time. See here how strong the temptation was which the prophet, by Divine assistance, got the victory over, and how far he yielded to it, that we may not despair if we through the weakness of the flesh be at any time thus tempted. H.—God lets a true heart dare much in speech; for He knows that the sputter and foam prove that “the heart’s deeps boil in earnest.” A. M. Jeremiah was a prophet, a good man, a man of faith, a man of prayer. Yet he cursed the day of his birth. Jeremiah was not without precedents for his conduct. Not to mention Jonah, whose character is by no means exemplary (though, poor man, he may have been good at heart), the patient Job and the courageous Elijah had both regarded existence as a curse, and cried passionately for death. Jeremiah had great provocations to despair. His mission seemed to be a failure; his old friends had become spies in league with his inveterate foes; he stood alone, watched, maligned, hated, cruelly misjudged. We cannot be surprised that his patience broke down. Though impatience and a yielding to despair are proofs of weakness, they are far less culpable than unfaithfulness. Many would have quietly declined the tasks which Jeremiah manfully performed, though they led him to the verge of despair. It must be noted that, though the prophet cursed the day of his birth, he did not flee from the mission of his life; though he longed for death, he did not commit suicide. From his experience the sorrowful may learn that deeper depths of sorrow have been traversed than any they are in, and yet the light has been reached on the farther side; the desponding may see how good men have been near despair before them, and so be encouraged by knowing that their despondency is not a sin of fatal unbelief. Adeney. The life of Jeremiah, “the sorrowful prophet,” should encourage us to noble things in spite of the hardest trials and oppositions. Like Job, he drank affliction and hostility to the dregs; yet what was bitter in his experience turned to sweetness in his character. Like Elijah, he was a man of life passions with ourselves, sensitive to pain, susceptible of temptation, liable to sin; yet he conquered against tremendous odds by means of the Divine grace open to us all. Moreover, he was a man not without sin. Occasionally, he failed even in his characteristic excellences. Scepticism sometimes touched him with its icy finger (4:10). Once he was tempted, like Jonah, to desert his task (1:6). Like Job, he was betrayed into cursing the day of his birth (20:14-18). Nevertheless his life was, upon the whole, a psalm of heroic nobility. Standing alone amid the crashing foundations of Judah, his character remains erect and enduring. The dirges which came so plaintively from his riven soul have brought peans of praise to many later sufferers. He triumphed because he believed in God and in every word of God. He endured, like Moses, as seeing him who is invisible. There his faith cast anchor, and the stormy sea was powerless to dislodge it. It made him sure of final safety whatever earthly illusions might vanish, whatever earthly catastrophes might befall. It stationed him at the view point of the Unchangeable and Omniscient, and enabled him to see things as they actually were. This martyr to truth has become the hero of immortal honor, because he trusted in the God who holds the future as well as the present. “The sorrows of Jeremiah, more than those of any other single prophet, correspond to the desertion, the isolation, the tenderness, the death, and the final glorification of the Divine Sufferer.” McPherson. 21:1 THE word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when king Zedekiah sent unto him Pashhur the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying, 2 Inquire, I pray thee, of the LORD for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us: peradventure the LORD will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us. 3, 4 Then said Jeremiah unto them, Thus shall ye say to Zedekiah: Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans which besiege you, without 5 the walls, and I will gather them into the midst of this city. And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in 6 great wrath. And I will smile the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall 7 die of a great pestilence. And afterward, saith the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, even such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have 8 mercy. And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I set before you 9 the way of life and the way of death. He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth away to the Chal- 10 deans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. For I have set my face upon this city for evil, and not for good, saith the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. 11, 12 And touching the house of the king of Judah, hear ye the word of the LORD: O house of David, thus saith the LORD, Execute judgement in the morning, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go forth like fire, and burn that none can 13 quench it, because of the evil of your doings. Behold, I am against thee, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the rock of the plain, saith the LORD: ye which say, Who shall come down 14 against us? or who shall enter into our habitations? and I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the LORD: and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is round about her. 37:1 And Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king, instead of Coniah the son of Jehoi- 2 akim, whom Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah. But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, did hearken unto the words of the LORD, which he spake by the prophet Jeremiah. 3 And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Ma- aseiah the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now unto the LORD our God for us. 4 Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people: for they had not put him into 5 prison. And Pharaoh's army was come forth out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that 6 besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they brake up from Jerusalem. Then came the 7 word of the LORD unto the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Thus shall ye say to the king of Judah, that sent you unto me to inquire of me; Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land. 8 And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city; and they shall take it, and 9 burn it with fire. Thus saith the LORD: Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans 10 shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire. 11 And it came to pass that when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem 12 for fear of Pharaoh's army, then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land 13 of Benjamin, to receive his portion there, in the midst of the people. And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he laid hold on Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou 14 fallest away to the Chaldeans. Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chal- deans; but he hearkened not to him: so Irijah laid hold on Jeremiah, and brought him to 15 the princes. And the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in 16 prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison. When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon house, and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there 17 many days; then Zedekiah the king sent, and fetched him: and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from the LORD? And Jeremiah said, There is. He 18 said also, Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. Moreover Jeremiah said unto king Zedekiah, Wherein have I sinned against thee, or against thy servants, or 19 against this people, that ye have put me in prison? Where now are your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against 20 this land? And now hear, I pray thee, O my lord the king: let my supplication, I pray thee, be accepted before thee; that thou cause me not to return to the house of Jonathan the 21 scribe, lest I die there. Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard, and they gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city was spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard. 28:1 And Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucel the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah spake unto all the people, saying, Thus saith the LORD, He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey, and he shall live. Thus saith the LORD, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. Then the princes said unto the king, Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; forasmuch as he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words unto them: for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt. And Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand: for the king is not he that can do anything against you. Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the king's son, that was in the court of the guard: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: and Jeremiah sank in the mire. Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an eunuch, which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon; the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin; Ebed-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spake to the king, saying, My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die in the place where he is because of the famine: for there is no more bread in the city. Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he die. So Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords. And Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and took him up out of the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard. Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet unto him into the third entry that is in the house of the LORD: and the king said unto Jeremiah, I will ask thee a thing; hide nothing from me. Then Jeremiah said unto Zedekiah, If I declare it unto thee, will thou not surely put me to death? and if I give thee counsel, thou wilt not hearken unto me. So Zedekiah the king swore secretly unto Jeremiah, saying, As the LORD liveth, that made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, neither will I give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life. Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: If thou wilt go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire; and thou shalt live, and thine house: but if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon's princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand. And Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen away to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me. But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver thee. Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the LORD, in that which I speak unto thee: so it shall be well with thee, and thy soul shall live. But if thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that the LORD hath shewed me: Behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes, and those women shall say, Thy familiar friends have set thee on, and have prevailed over thee: now that thy feet are sunk in the mire, they are turned away back. And they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans: and thou shalt not escape out of their hand, but shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire. Then said Zedekiah unto Jeremiah, Let no man know of these words, and thou shalt not die. But if the princes hear that I have talked with thee, and they come unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare unto us now what thou hast said unto the king; hide it not from us, and we will not put thee to death: also what the king said unto thee: then thou shalt say unto them, I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not cause me to return to Jonathan's house, to die there. Then came all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him: and he told them according to all these words that the king had commanded. So they left off speaking with him; for the matter was not perceived. So Jeremiah abode in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken. The part taken by the prophet Jeremiah, and the cause of his imprisonment. It is certain that Jeremiah sided throughout with the Babylonish party, not only in Josiah's reign, but through the succeeding reigns of Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. He could not but see the broken and iniquitous condition of his people. And this, with his inspired foresight of God's chastening purposes, led him to use his utmost endeavor that Judah's kings and people should not unnecessarily exasperate the Babylonish monarch. He would save them from all possible aggravation of wickedness as well as useless resistance, and thus from consequent suffering. Hence the enmity of the Egyptian party in the capital, often during the twenty years of these closing reigns, endangered the prophet's life. Protected he was, however, up to the last siege of Jerusalem; partly by his manifest prophetic office, and partly by the friends God raised up—by the kings themselves, or by priestly and noble defenders. His imprisonment occurred toward the end of Zedekiah's reign, about eighteen months before the final crisis of the kingdom, when Jerusalem was destroyed and the remaining people carried captive to Babylon. Zedekiah, a weak rather than wicked king, yielding to the Egyptian party, had been persuaded to renounce subjection to the king of Babylon, and enter into alliance with Egypt. B.—It is evident that Zedekiah was well affected toward Jeremiah; for he thrice asked his advice, first by a public embassy (21:1; 37:3) and subsequently in secret (37:17; 38:14); but he was far too weak a man to be capable of energetic action in his behalf, and so allowed him to be imprisoned and persecuted. The city had been besieged by the Chaldeans, and was tottering to its fall, when the approach of the Egyptian army gave the inhabitants hope of aid; and for a short time the Chaldeans departed from Jerusalem. Then Zedekiah sent to Jeremiah, asking him to pray unto the Lord for them, probably expecting that he would intercede for the city, as Isaiah had done in the days of Hezekiah (Isa. 37:6). Jeremiah's answer was more unfavorable than he had given before. It was that the Egyptians would accomplish nothing, and that the Chaldeans would return and take the city. The princes were angry with Jeremiah, smote him, and put him in prison. Zedekiah, on the renewal of the siege, sent and took him out, and secretly ordered him brought to his palace, where he again consulted him, but with the same result. Jeremiah prays for milder treatment. Zedekiah, who was of a kindly disposition and remembered Jeremiah as an honored prophet in the days of his father, now gives him roomy quarters in the court of the guard, where he wrote the cheerful prophecy contained in chaps. 30-33; and as provisions were growing scarce, the king ordered that a loaf of bread should be given him every day. The purpose of the princes was frustrated by his removal to the guard-house, as there his friends had free access to him. B. C. Chap. 21. This chapter contains the first of those prophecies, which were delivered by Jeremiah subsequent to the revolt of Zedekiah, and the breaking out of the war thereupon; and which are continued on to the taking of Jerusalem. The terms of this message seem to imply that the king of Babylon had but just commenced his hostilities against Judah, of which Zedekiah informs the prophet, as of a matter that might not have come to his certain knowledge; and desires him to intercede with God, that He would divert the storm by some such extraordinary interposition as He had been wont to manifest in favor of His people. Blayney.—The Lord's answer through His prophet was very categorical, decisive and appalling, still leaving an open door, however, for hope on the one sole condition that the king and his people would thoroughly repent and reform their ways. Even at this late hour salvation was possible on these only righteous conditions. 8-10. This gives the people to understand distinctly that the city is doomed to destruction, and that their only hope of personal safety lies in going out and giving themselves up to the Chaldeans. This is a clear illustration of the language elsewhere used of the moral choice which the Lord sets before men between the way of life and the way of death—e.g., De. 30:15-20 and Josh. 24:14-24. H. C. 8. Set before you the way of life and the way of death.** The impression of every scene, of every lesson, of every folly is pushing you on to some decision—whether you will serve God or not, whether you will consecrate your life to its true end or not. On, on rolls the tide of hours, days and years, awifter and stronger in current, setting more resistless toward the cataract. Moment flows into moment, melts into the mass and is lost to view, but every drop swells the flood that presses you to the final issue. Gillett. There are two courses in life. There are but two. The two are utterly irreconcilable and discordant. You cannot have them both. It must be one thing or the other. The choice is really made, degradingly and disgracefully by the very act of refraining from choosing. But if you would be men, choose, determine! I do not need to contemplate the possibility of anybody here saying, "You have set before me life and death, and I solemnly and deliberately choose death;" but I beseech you, take care that you do not slip into the choice of the worse part before you know where you are, and that years of careless yielding to circumstances and temptations do not at last rob you of the power to resolve that your life shall ever be otherwise moulded than by external forces. A. M. Oh, if we could realize to ourselves who we are, and where I placed on what a mighty eminence of blessing; raised to what a height of privilege and hope; walking along what a narrow ridge of duty; beset by what terrible enemies; helped by what a wonderful indwelling Presence; travelling onward with a steady pace, which no power or skill of man can check or stay, to what a certain, an irreversible, an endless doom! Like a ship pressing with full sail into an unknown sea, with a thick mist around her, we are pressing into the future: we cannot stay—we cannot pause—we can furl no sails—we can let out no anchors; on we must go, and on we are going to find our rock, our quicksand or our harbor. Bp. Moberly. Chap. 37. The date of this chapter falls during the reign of Zedekiah, and within the last eighteen months of his reign—i.e., within the period of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. It refers specially to the historic fact that during the progress of this siege the king of Egypt approached with an army for the relief of his own allies. Whereupon the Chaldeans raised the siege and marched against the Egyptians. In the result the Egyptians returned to their own country. The Chaldeans reinvested Jerusalem and ultimately took it. Precisely at what stage of the siege this diversion by the Egyptians occurred or how long the siege was suspended in consequence, we are not told. While they were absent Jeremiah took the opportunity to leave the city, was arrested at the city gate, and thrown into close confinement. 6-10. The imperilled Jews and their king were ready to grasp the faintest shadow of hope from this approach of an Egyptian army. But the Lord was against them. Hence no earthly power could save them from destruction. It was of the Lord's mercy that He promptly and solemnly warned them against deceiving themselves with this vain hope. Such hope lessened the pressure of motive on their minds to repent before God and seek His favor. Hence the promptness and decision of this assurance that help from that quarter was vain. H. C. 12-21. We have here a further account concerning Jeremiah, who relates more passages concerning himself than any other of the prophets; for the histories of the lives and sufferings of God's ministers have been very serviceable to the Church, as well as their preaching and writing. H. 12. Then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem. The investing army having withdrawn, communication was again opened between the city and the adjacent country. To go into the land of Benjamin. Jeremiah's patrimony lay in Anathoth, in the tribe of Benjamin (Jer. 1:1), which was one of the cities assigned to the priests in the time of Joshua (Josh. 21:17, 18). To receive his portion there**, or, "from thence." It was evidently some matter of business connected with his paternal estate. It could hardly have been his purpose to remain in so exposed a situation, when the Chaldeans should return as he confidently expected (Jer. 37:8-10). Jeremiah steadfastly insisted upon sharing the fortunes of his countrymen even after the fall of the city, in spite of the tempting offers that were made to him of a comfortable home in Babylon (Jer. 40:4, 6); and it is not probable that he meant to desert them now. 15. And the princes smote him, and put him in prison.** In spite of his protestations, he was adjudged guilty, beaten and imprisoned. W. H. G.—The charge of intended desertion was a mere excuse for wreaking their malice on him. They hated Jeremiah because he had steadily opposed the popular determination to fight, and had foretold disaster. Add to that that he had held up a high standard of religion and morality to a corrupt and idolatrous people, and his "unpopularity" is sufficiently explained. A. M. 16. When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon house.** Literally, as in the margin, "house of the pit." This pit, or cistern, is not further described, except as a place where Jeremiah was likely to perish (verse 20). The miserable plight in which he was in another filthy dungeon, into which he was subsequently thrust, is detailed somewhat at length in Jer. 38:6 sqq. W. H. G. The princes were the power behind the throne. They hated Jeremiah. Although they might differ in many things from the priests and the false prophets, they agreed with them in detesting this stern, truth-telling man, as Pilate and Herod were made friends by their common hostility to Christ. The princes, too, held the sympathies of the populace, for all were united in a frenzy of fear and in opposition to the man who deservedly condemned them all. The hatred was political as well as personal and moral; and political passions are very likely to become virulent. The princes still clung, with stubborn conservatism, to the exhausted protection of Egypt. Jeremiah, instructed by God, counselled temporary surrender to Babylon; and no wonder, since that would be no more than a recognition of existing facts. It must be remembered, too, that the courtly party remaining in Jerusalem and Judah was only a remnant. The strongest of the princes had been deported to Babylon, where, with Jehoiachin and his household, they remained respected in imprisonment. Those left behind were but refuse. It is not surprising that these weak, base men were nagging the one great citizen surviving in the kingdom. Ezekiel and Daniel were among the exiles in Babylon. Jeremiah was practically alone in Judah. The party that had formerly been friendly to him was disintegrated and scattered. As for the rest, gnats, as they prefer carrion, enjoy the attempt to worry a lion to death. But the lion is, after all, the hero of that whole period of Hebrew history. Jeremiah belongs to the rare company who, when they do well, suffer for it, and yet take it patiently (1 Pet. 2 : 20). They are too good for this world, but acceptable with God. Persecution is now uncommon; the world has softened and grown wiser. Perhaps the average Christian, too, is less scrupulous and less brave. But it is still a poor type of piety which is popular with worldliness. McPherson. 17. After many days' confinement in this horrible dungeon underground, the king took him out and asked him secretly if there was any word from the Lord. The prophet's circumstances were at this time such as would most thoroughly test his loyalty to his Divine Lord. He had every earthly inducement to please the king; yet he fearlessly announced the king's terrible doom from the Lord, "Thou shalt be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon." Prison discipline had not unnerved his steadfast purpose to be true to his God. He had an earnest personal plea to make for his liberty and his life. He wisely put this plea on its own bottom—an humble appeal to the king's sense of justice and feelings of compassion. He could not swerve from his fidelity to God for the sake of even liberty or life. 18,19. What is my offence? I have only told you the truth, one proof of which you may yourself see; for where are those false prophets that gainsayed my words and belied the Lord, saying, "The king of Babylon shall not come up against this city and land?" Let the king look at the facts, and he will see that so far all my predictions have proved true. Why, then, should he count me his enemy for telling him the truth? H. C.—In Jeremiah's answer we may note, as equally prominent and beautifully blended, respect, submission, consciousness of peril and impending death, and unshaken boldness. He knew that his life was at the disposal of the capricious, feeble Zedekiah. He bows before him as his subject, and brings his "supplication;" but not one jot of his message will he abate, nor smooth down its terribleness an atom. He repeats as unfalteringly as ever the assurance that the king of Babylon will take the city. He asserts his own innocence as regards king and courtiers and people; and he asks what has become of all the smooth-tongued prophets of prosperity, as if he had bid the king look over the city wall and see the tokens of their lies and of Jeremiah's truth in the investing lines of the all but victorious enemy. Such a combination of perfect meekness and perfect courage, unstained loyalty to his king, and supreme obedience to his God, was only possible to a man who lived in very close communion with Jehovah, and had learned thereby to fear none else, because he feared Him so well, and to reverence all else whom He had set in places of reverence. True courage, of the pattern which befits God's servants, is ever gentle. Bluster is the sign of weakness. A. M. 21. The king acceded to his request. By the king's command Jeremiah was committed "into the court of the guard." This was a court connected with a portion of the palace, which was used as a prison (Jer. 32 : 2). He was still in custody, but in much more comfortable quarters than those which he had previously occupied. W. H. G. And they gave him daily a loaf of bread. He had interest enough in the prophet to interfere for his comfort, and to have him put into better quarters in the palace and provided with a "circle" (a round loaf) of bread out of Baker Street, as long as there was any in the city—not a very long time. But why did he do so much, and not do more? He knew that Jeremiah was innocent, and that his word was God's; and what he should have done was to have shaken off his masterful "servants," followed his conscience, and obeyed God. Why did he not? Because he was a coward, infirm of purpose, and therefore unstable as water. He is another of the tragic examples with which all life as well as Scripture is studded, of how much evil is possible to a weak character. In this world, where there are so many temptations to be bad, no man will be good who cannot strongly say "No." The virtue of strength of will may be but like the rough fence round young trees to keep cattle from browsing on them and east winds from blighting them. But the fence is needed, if the trees are to grow. "To be weak is to be miserable," and sinful, too, generally. "Whom resist" must be the motto for all noble, God-like, and God pleasing life. A. M. 38 : 1-4. Jeremiah persists in his plain preaching; what he had many a time said, he still says (verse 3), This city shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon; though it hold out long, it will be taken at last; so that every man might have his own life given him for a prey if he would be advised (verse 2). The princes persist in their malice against Jeremiah. They represented him to the king as a dangerous man, disaffected to his country and government; he seeks not the welfare of this people, but the hurt—an unjust insinuation, for no man had laid out himself more for the good of Jerusalem than he had done. H.—This charge of high treason kept out of view the counsel of the Lord, and gave no credit to Jeremiah's claim of being sent of God to say these very words. It was not strange that, from their wicked standpoint, they should take the view they did. The strangeness and the guilt all lie in their disregard of the manifest proofs that Jeremiah spake from the Lord. The worst fact in their case was, that they had no heart to hear what God had said. In this lay their damning sin. Most righteously this became their ruin. H. C. 5. The king is not he that can do anything against you.** The king evidently speaks this in disgust with the princes for endeavoring to frustrate his clemency. He had once rescued Jeremiah out of their hands, and taken him under his royal protection. But his prerogative, he tells them, was likely to avail but little, when opposed by their obstinate and repeated importunities. The power was in reality theirs, and not his. Blayney. 7-9. Among all the royal household, and throughout the king's court, no one is found to exhibit the spirit of the good Samaritan save this Ethiopian eunuch. The subsequent notice of him (39:15-18) shows that he put his trust in the Lord, a man of true piety, whom the Lord graciously preserved amid the general slaughter of the king's household. To all the other discomforts and miseries of the prophet's situation was added hunger. On this plea specially the eunuch urges the king to order his release, for at this time no bread remained in the city (cf. 37:21). H. C.—Ebed-melech was an Ethiopian, a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, and yet had in him more humanity, and more divinity too, than native Israelites had. Christ found more faith among Gentiles than among Jews. Ebed-melech lived in a wicked court and in a very corrupt, degenerate age, and yet had a great sense both of equity and piety. God has His remnant in all places, among all sorts. There were saints even in Cesar's household. H. 17,18. This message the prophet had rerepeatedly given to the king and to his people. The Lord had fully purposed that the nation, unless saved by repentance, must fall before the Chaldean power. Their national pride repelled this advice; their infatuation plunged them deep in destruction. H. C.—The advice of Jeremiah clearly proves that the destruction of Zedekiah was not so determined but that he might have prevented it. The Divine threatenings and predictions and God's knowledge of futurity do not deprive men of their liberty, since the evils with which they are threatened are brought on them by their own fault. Ostervald. 19,20. Some of Zedekiah's people had already gone over to the Chaldeans against the will of their king, but according to the counsel of the Lord. The king anticipates and fears their taunts if he were to humble himself so low as to follow them. They might say, "And you too have come at last!" He is afraid the Chaldeans will deliver him into the hands of those Jews whom he would fain have punished for treason, and from whom he might therefore not unnaturally fear rough treatment. But it is always safe to obey God—a lesson which this king, alas! was slow to learn. H. C. 20-23. The pressing importunity with which Jeremiah followed the advice he had given the king. He assures him that if he would comply with the will of God herein the thing he feared should not come upon him (verse 20). Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the Lord, because it is His voice, so it shall be well unto thee. But he tells him what would be the consequence if he would not obey. He himself would fall into the hands of the Chaldeans, as implacable enemies, whom he might now make his friends, by throwing himself into their hands. H. 24-27. It was due to his timid fear of his princes (a fear unworthy of a king) that he devised this scheme for suppressing a part of the truth as to what had passed between himself and Jeremiah. A somewhat nice question of morals arises in cases of this sort on the point whether we are bound to tell the whole truth to men who demand it for a bad purpose; and if not, how far it is morally right to give or to favor the impression that we have told the whole truth when we have not. The latter is really the delicate point, for we readily assent to the doctrine that we are not bound, even though questioned, to tell all we know to all men under all circumstances. 28. So Jeremiah abode in the court of the prison until the day that Jerusalem was taken: and he was there when Jerusalem was taken. This "court of the prison" was probably a less severe and close confinement than either "his dungeon and cabin" in the house of Jonathan (37:15, 16, 20) or the pit of mire, known as "the dungeon of Malchiah" (38:6-13). The original words might well be rendered, "The court of the guard-house." In this state his friends seem to have had access to him, and he announced to them the words of the Lord. (Compare chap. 37:21 with chap. 38:1-3). H. C. Jeremiah's Purchase of a Field. His Prayer. His Prediction of Jerusalem's Overthrow and Subsequent Rebuilding. Embodied with the History, Vol. VII., page 436. 22:1 Thus said the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and thy people that enter in by these gates. Thus saith the Lord: Execute ye judgement and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence, to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people. But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. For thus saith the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah: Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited. And I will prepare destroyers against thee, every one with his weapons: and they shall cut down thy choice cedars, and cast them into the fire. And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbour, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city? Then they shall answer, Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them. 10 Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away; 11 for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. For thus saith the Lord touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, which reigned instead of Josiah his father, which went forth out of this place: He shall not return thither any more; but in the place whither they have led him captive, there shall he die, and he shall see this land no more. 13 Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; 14 that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not his hire; that saith, I will build me a wide house and spacious chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is 15 cled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou strivest to excel in cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgement and justice! then it was 16 well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Was not 17 this to know me? saith the Lord. But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covet-18 ousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it. There-fore thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not lament for him, 19 saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem. 20 Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up thy voice in Bashan: and cry from Abarim; for 21 all thy lovers are destroyed. I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidst, I will 22 not hear. This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice. The wind shall feed all thy shepherds, and thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt 23 thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness. O inhabitant of Lebanon, that makest thy nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied shalt thou be when pangs come upon 24 thee, the pain as of a woman in travail! As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee 25 thence; and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them of whom thou art afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and 26 into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, 27 into another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die. But to the land 28 whereunto their soul longeth to return, thither shall they not return. Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, 29 he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they know not? O earth, earth, earth, 30 hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah. 23:1 Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the 2 LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, against the shepherds that feed my people: Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them; be 3 hold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD. And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them 4 again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply. And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, saith the LORD. 5 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute judgement and justice in the 6 land. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name 7 whereby he shall be called, The LORD is our righteousness. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, As the LORD liveth, which brought up the chil 8 dren of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, As the LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land. 9 Concerning the prophets. Mine heart within me is broken, all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome; because of the LORD, and be 10 cause of his holy words. For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pastures of the wilderness are dried up; and their course is evil, and their 11 force is not right. For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found 12 their wickedness, saith the LORD. Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery places in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, 13 even the year of their visitation, saith the LORD. And I have seen folly in the prophets of 14 Samaria; they prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen an horrible thing; they commit adultery, and walk in lies, and they strengthen the hands of evil-doers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. 15 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusa 16 lem is profaneness gone forth into all the land. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you; they teach you vanity: they speak 17 a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD. They say continually unto them that despise me, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and unto every one that walketh in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, No evil shall come upon you. 18 For who hath stood in the council of the LORD, that he should perceive and hear his word? 19 who hath marked my word, and heard it? Behold, the tempest of the LORD, even his fury, 20 is gone forth, yea, a whirling tempest: it shall burst upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the LORD shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the 21 intents of his heart: in the latter days ye shall understand it perfectly. I sent not these 22 prophets, yet they ran: I spake not unto them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my people to hear my words, and had turned them from 23 their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and 24 not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the 25 LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD. I have heard what the prophets 26 have said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies; even the prophets of the 27 deceit of their own heart? which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers forget my name for Baal. 28 The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him 29 speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat? saith the LORD. Is not my word like as fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? 30 Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words every 31 one from his neighbour. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that use their 32 tongues, and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy lying dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting: yet I sent them not, nor commanded them; neither shall they profit this people at all, 33 saith the LORD. And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? then shalt thou say unto them, What burden! I will cast 34 you off, saith the LORD. And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall 35 say, The burden of the LORD, I will even punish that man and his house. Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the LORD answered? 36 and, What hath the LORD spoken? And the burden of the LORD shall ye mention no more: for every man's own word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living 37 God, of the LORD of hosts our God. Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What hath the 38 LORD answered thee? and, What hath the LORD spoken? But if ye say, The burden of the LORD; therefore thus saith the LORD: Because ye say this word, The burden of the LORD, 39 and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the LORD; therefore, behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast you off, and the city that I gave unto you and 40 to your fathers, away from my presence: and I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten. CHAPS. 22 and 23 are connected together by similarity of subject. The temporal and spiritual leaders of the people, who are mainly responsible for the national catastrophe, receive their merited castigation. Verses 1-8 of chap. 23, properly speaking, belong to chap. 22; thus we get a well-rounded discourse on the conduct of the kings, with four symmetrical parts or strophes—verses 1-12, 13-19, 20-30 and chap. 23:1-8. Each begins with a general exhortation or meditation, and continues with a poetical description of the fates, successively, of Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin. The prophecy is concluded, according to the rule of Isaiah, by a Messianic promise. P. C. The prophecy which follows to chap. 23:8 was evidently delivered in the reign of Jehoiakim; for it speaks of his immediate predecessor as already gone into captivity, and foretells the death of Jehoiakim himself. It is likewise probable that it followed immediately after what is said in the 19th and 20th chapters to have passed in the Temple precincts; from whence, as from higher ground, the prophet is ordered to "go down to the house of the king of Judah." (Cf. chap. 36:12.) The beginning of this prophecy is an address to the king of Judah, his servants and people, recommending an inviolable adherence to right and justice, as the only means of establishing a throne, and preventing the ruin of both prince and people (verses 1-9). The captivity of Shallum is declared to be irreversible (verses 10-12). Jehoiakim is severely reproved for his tyrannical oppressions, and his miserable end foretold (verses 13-19). His family is threatened with a continuance of the like calamities; the fall and captivity of his son Jeconiah are explicitly set forth, and the perpetual exclusion of his seed from the throne (verses 20-30). The name of Zedekiah is not mentioned for obvious reareasons; but he is, no doubt, principally intended in the two verses of chap. 23 under the general character of those evil shepherds, who should be punished for dispersing, instead of feeding, the flock. In the six following verses, with which the prophecy concludes, the people are consoled with gracious promises of future blessings; of their return from captivity, and of happier times under better governors; of the glorious establishment of the Messiah's kingdom; and, it may be, of the subsequent restoration of all the dispersed Israelites to dwell once more in their own land. Blayney. 1,2. As one who must not fear the face of the proudest or most wicked of monarchs on his throne, Jeremiah must go to the king's house and there proclaim this word. There were things in this message that were keenly cutting and humiliating, but they were also fearfully true, and being true, they should be said even though the guilty man who had done them were a king on his throne. It was pertinent to remind this wicked Jehoiakim that he sat on the throne of David, for David was in an important sense the founder of this kingdom. 3. With admirable clearness and point the one supreme purpose of all civil government, and consequently its prime duties and obligations, are here set forth—viz., to execute judgment and righteousness, to secure even-handed justice and equity between man and man; to shield the weak against the strong, and all classes against oppression and wrong. It was for these purposes that God ordained a civil government over His chosen people. These are the ends He aims to secure in His sanction of civil government in all human society. Rulers should be "a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that do well." In the present case He promises, provided they will rule thus, to continue the succession of kings on David's throne indefinitely long, and with great prosperity. 5-7. If Jehoiakim and his court will not hear, God dooms them to utter desolation. Nothing could be more solemn than this fearful oath, in which the Lord God swears by Himself: "As truly as I live, I will execute this sentence of remediless doom!" It would be in vain for the king and his princes to say, It cannot be that God will destroy His own Temple and His own city, and let His name be blotted out from among the nations of men. It would be all in vain for them to flatter themselves that they were so identified with the house, the worship, the name and the honor of God on earth, that they could have nothing to fear from a foreign enemy, no such thing to fear as the ruin of their city and kingdom. H. C. 6. Thou art Gilead unto Me, and the head of Lebanon. Lebanon was the highest mountain in Israel; and was, therefore, an apt emblem of the reigning family, advanced to the highest rank and dignity in the State. Gilead was the richest and most fertile part of the country. The meaning then is plainly this, By My providence thou art not only supreme in rank, but hast been rendered exceedingly wealthy and flourishing; but the same power that raised thee, will likewise be exerted in reducing thee to the lowest state of indigence and distress. Blayney.—The greater privileges any church or nation enjoys, the sorer will prove its punishment, if it abuses the favor and goodness of God. Wogan. 8. And many nations shall pass by this city. They who had heard that this city had been called the city of God, and the place of His especial residence, would be astonished to find it the scene of His judgments and vengeance. Thus was fulfilled that threatening of Moses, that God would make the Jews "an astonishment" to other nations (De. 28:37. See likewise 1 K. 9:8.) W. Lowth. 10. Weep ye not for the dead. "Weep not for the dead"—that is, for the good Josiah, who, though dead, was happy and in peace; but weep rather for his wicked son Shallum, or Jehoahaz, who after a very short and impious reign was carried captive into Egypt, and was never to return or see his native country any more. Wogan. 13-17. This woe does not begin with naming Jehoiakim, the king then on the throne. The prophet first describes him in points too plain to be mistaken. He then addresses him (verse 15), and finally (verse 18) gives his name and God's solemn message to him announcing his terrible doom. The repeated exhortations to Jehoiakim to do justice, to execute judgment, to abstain from oppression (see above, verses 3, 4 and chap. 7:5-9), plainly intimate the general character of his reign in these respects. The history gives us a hint of this in its brief notice of his heavy exactions of tribute from the people (2 K. 23:33, 35). The prophet represents him as lavishing the wealth of the nation upon his palace at this very time when his people were crushed with taxation—extorting labor from them without wages, and building his house by unrighteousness. This was both mean and wicked, and we instinctively honor the Lord for frowning upon it and dooming this proud tyrant to a dishonored grave as a fit retribution for building his costly and magnificent palace with coerced, unpaid labor, in the midst of the general suffering of an overtaxed people. In verse 15 the Hebrew reads, not precisely "closest thyself in cedar," but "dost rival or emulate in cedar"—i.e., rival all other kings; seek to outdo them all in the costliness and splendor of thy palace. Will this guarantee to thee a long and prosperous reign? Far otherwise. "Did not thy father eat and drink," enjoying the good things of life quite sufficiently, and yet without any such extortion and wasteful expenditure as this of thine? Did not he do justice and judgment, and thus ensure prosperity? Do not you, his recreant son, know that he judged the cause of the poor and needy, and that so judging and so doing it was well with him? And is not this administration of justice—done withal in kindness and compassion—"to know Me, saith the Lord?" Is anything else knowing Me? Will not every king who really knows Me rule thus? 18,19. Note the striking contrast between the great mourning over the death of the father, Josiah, and the utter absence of even one note of grief over the burial of his godless, graceless, guilty son! Nobody shall say over him, "Ah his glory!" There was no glory lost there to be deplored! Verses 20-30 refer to Jeconiah, otherwise called Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim. In the first four verses he is not brought out by name (Jehoiakim was not at first; see verses 13-17), but the manner in which he is introduced in verse 24 shows that these four verses (20-23) refer to him. Indeed, they can refer to none other, for Jehoiakim has gone to his dishonored grave. The Lord had spoken to this young king in friendly warning while he was prosperous, but he would not hear. Indeed, from his youth he had persisted in this wicked course, regardless of the voice of God. Of necessity this must ensure his ruin. H. C. 20. Go up to Lebanon, and cry. This is an ironical expression, addressed to Jerusalem, or more probably to the royal house or family of Judah; the whole chapter being a prophecy concerning it and its several branches. She is styled "inhabitant of Lebanon" (verse 23) for the same reason as her state and dignity is denoted by "the head (or summit) of Lebanon" (verse 6), as being highest of all. Here she is called upon ironically to go to the tops of the highest mountains, and to the frontiers of the country, and cry aloud for help to the neighboring powers, but in vain; since all those who had any inclination to favor her, the Egyptians in particular, were themselves crushed and disabled by the arms of the king of Babylon. Blayney. 21. I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidst, I will not hear. God speaks to us in our prosperity. There are important words which need to be spoken to us at such a time. We can never have all the wants of our souls supplied by the richest abundance of material good things, and we need heavenly words for our soul's sustenance then as much as in the conscious helplessness of trouble. We have special duties belonging to the time of prosperity. Prosperity brings talents, opens up opportunities for enlarged service, calls for renewed devotion of love and gratitude. There are also peculiar dangers attending prosperity, and it is well that we should hear a Divine voice warn us against them, and heed a Divine counsel which will direct us how to conquer them. There are means by which God speaks to us in prosperity. He is ever speaking to us, even when we do not hear His voice—by the Bible we should be reading, by the ordinances of the Church and the institution of preaching, by the course of providence, by the life of nature, by the still small voice of conscience. But there are special voices of prosperity. Prosperity speaks to us of the goodness of God exercised toward us in spite of our ill-desert and in a degree beyond all reckoning. There is danger lest we should disregard the voice of God in prosperity. God does not thrust His messages upon unwilling ears. We may refuse to hear. Yet He speaks so that we may always hear, so that if we do not heed His voice it must be because we will not hearken to it. Prosperity may disincline us to do this because it seems to satisfy us without God. Really satisfy us it cannot. But temporarily it acts as an opiate, and when we do not feel the need of God we are tempted selfishly to disregard His voice. Then prosperity is distracting. Sorrow is lonely and silent, and leaves us in the dark night to listen to heavenly voices and gaze on the wonders of the world above. The garish day of prosperity, with its noisy and dazzling distractions, withdraws our attention from such things. Further, prosperity begets pride. It leads us to think much of self, to yield to self-will, and to rebel against the requirement to act as God's servants and stoop beneath the yoke of His will. Hence it inclines us to a rebellious disregard for His voice. If men have been hardened against God from their youth, it is not likely that they will heed His voice in the time of prosperity. The longer we neglect this voice the more deaf do we become to it. It is terrible to think of the folly and wickedness of persistent disregard to God's truth while He is patient and long-suffering and persevering in seeking access to our hearts. Some great shock seems to be required to disturb this habit of hardened indifference. An earthquake of adversity may be required to break up such fallow ground. If trouble comes with this end it is a great blessing. The adversity of the Captivity was such a blessing to the Jews; it led them to regard the voice that was unheeded in their prosperity. So our sorrows are often blessings if they make us to hear the voice of our Father in heaven. Adeney. Prosperity is as real a test of what men are as is adversity. It draws forth a different set of qualities, but is not the less a means of proving and intensifying a man's character, be it good or bad. When we say that sometimes success in commerce, literature, science or military skill makes a man vain and scornful of others, or humble and considerate, we really mean that it has developed hidden weakness in the one case, and moral strength in the other. He who can conquer prosperity is often a greater man than the conqueror of adversity. Only the spirit of Him who "made Himself of no reputation," who "became poor" that we "might be rich," will enable us to subdue all things to His glory. Chapman. 24,25. The signet-ring on the right hand would represent whatever was peculiarly valuable and precious. Though Coniah was in some respects as valuable and dear to the Lord as a signet ring, yet for his sins the Lord would pluck him off His finger—i.e., hurl him from his throne, and send him into captivity. The history of this young but wicked king shows that he was taken captive to Babylon; that he lay there at least thirty-seven years in captivity; was then brought forth from prison on the accession of Evil-merodach, and treated with princely kindness. This Chaldean king reigned but two years. We hear no more of Jehoiachin. (See 2 K. 25: 27-30 and Jer. 52: 31-34.) Ezekiel, a fellow-captive, dates from the years of his captivity. (See Ezek. 1: 2; 8: 1, etc.) 30. This young king was doomed to be childless, not in the sense of having no offspring, but of having none to succeed him on the throne of David and to rule any more in Judah. That he had sons appears in 1 Chron. 3: 17, 18 and in Matt. 1: 12. In him the royal line became extinct—a fact pregnant with significance in this connection, opening the way for the subject of the next chapter, the new king whom God would raise up for a shepherd to His people (23: 5, 6). H. C. Chap. 23. This chapter stands in the closest relations of thought to the preceding. The succession of wicked kings, the three recreant sons of Josiah, brought to view, delineated and doomed there, are here referred to as “the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep on the Lord’s pasture-field.” They are doomed to fearful judgments; but the Lord in His loving faithfulness will yet save His people, and for this end will raise up a righteous King in the person of the Messiah, under whose just sway the people will have salvation, instead of such judgments as their wicked kings had brought down upon them. This is the course of thought which introduces and illustrates this signal prophecy of the Messiah (verses 5, 6) and of His blessed reign (verses 7, 8). The remaining portion of the chapter (verses 9-40) treats of the false prophets whose influence had been and then was so pernicious to the people. 1. That the word “pastors” is applied to the kings that sat on David’s throne comes naturally from the fact that David himself was taken from the care of his father’s flocks and put to the care of the Lord’s people. He was in more senses than one the shepherd-king—i.e., a king who rose from shepherd-life to the life of king, and who made that kingly life a fine example of pastoral care and influence over the Lord’s covenant people. In the light of his example suggested by this very term, it was most fit that the direst woes should fall on those recreant kings recently named and described, who had destroyed or scattered into foreign lands the sheep who were on the Lord’s pasture-land in Canaan. The main thoughts in this passage (verses 1-8) are found even more fully expanded in Ezek. 34. 2. “The Lord God of Israel” is the appropriate designation of Jehovah in such a connection as this. He appears here in glorious promise and prophecy as the deliverer of His people, because He is by covenant the Lord God of Israel—of Israel as a whole people, irrespective of the revolt and loss of the Ten Tribes—of Israel as the offspring of Him who was a prince with God. 5. “Branch” is rather a shoot or sprout which springs up from the root and becomes itself the tree. The word appears earliest in Isa. 4: 2, and is said of the Messiah elsewhere—e.g., Jer. 33: 15; Zech. 3: 8 and 6: 12. He would be righteous in broad distinction from the unrighteous kings brought to view in the previous chapter, especially Jehoiakim, who was unsurpassed in shameless injustice and oppression. (The same word is used of the Messiah in Isa. 53: 11 and Zech. 9: 9.) H. C. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord. It hath been universally agreed by Christians, and allowed by several of the most eminent Jewish interpreters, that this is a prophecy of the coming of Christ, and the glorious state of God’s Church consequent thereupon. Nor is it possible to think of any other person or event, to which the characters here mentioned agree; while they all evidently conspire to point out the Messiah and His kingdom. I will raise unto David a righteous Branch. It is an usual figure for the head of a family, and the descendants from him, to be represented by the root or body of a tree, and the branches growing out of that tree. God, therefore, having frequently declared that the Messiah should be born of the house and lineage of David, the prophet, here and in chap. 33: 15, with allusion to this figure, mentions it as an act of Divine power and mercy that “God would raise unto David a righteous Branch.” Dean Stanhope. The Messiah is often called “the Branch,” to denote His descent from the stock of David. (See Isa. 4: 2; Zech. 3: 8; 6: 12, and cf. Isa. 11: 1.) W. Lowth.—And a King shall reign and deal wisely. The Messiah was continually from the time of David foretold under this character, and as such He was expected by the Jews. Accordingly the New Testament abounds in affirmations concerning the regal character of Jesus; in conformity with which, though His kingly authority be not so visibly and powerfully exerted as it shall one day be, yet we are not left under any reasonable doubt whether our blessed Lord be the promised Messiah. The amazing vengeance taken on His murderers, in destroying their city and their constitution, and the no less wonderful success of His Gospel, propagated and preserved in opposition to all its enemies, are instances of His unlimited "power in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:18). The enlightening of Jews and Gentiles, by bringing such multitudes of the one and so many nations of the other to the acknowledgment of the truth, are a partial completion of the prophecies, though there be still a nobler in reserve, when the fulness of both shall come in. He reigns now actually in the hearts of men, and subdues the most formidable of our enemies by the holiness of His law and the mighty operations of His grace. His dominion and conquest indeed will be much more absolute when the time shall come for every enemy to be utterly destroyed. In the mean time, we may be well assured that what remains shall certainly come to pass, because nothing has hitherto failed of what was seasonable and expedient to be done, as an evidence of Christ's regal authority. Dean Stanhope. And shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. This character is elsewhere given of the kingdom of Christ (see Ps. 72:2; Isa. 11:5; 32:1), His laws being the most perfect rule of righteousness, and He Himself the most impartial Rewarder of every man according to his works (Rev. 22:12). W. Lowth. #### 6. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Judah and Israel must here be thought of as representing the true Israel of God according to Gal. 6:16: "Peace be upon them, even upon the Israel of God." This means the Messiah's kingdom as enlarged by the accession of the Gentiles, and lifted to a higher plane of spiritual life by the fuller revelation of God through His Incarnate Son, and by the mission of His Spirit. In its terms, and indeed in its spirit as well, this promise ("In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely") refers to that most sublime description of Jehovah's care for His people, seen in De. 33:26-29: "There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heavens in thy help, and in His excellency on the sky." "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms; and He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee, and shall say, 'Destroy them.'' "Israel then shall dwell in safety alone." . . . "Happy art thou, O Israel! who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord"—"the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thine excellency!" So blessed shall be the future reign of our great King Messiah, when His Gospel shall have unbounded sway, and His love shall rule in all hearts without a rival, and unto the real holiness in heart and life of His whole people! Then Zion's King shall bear this name, the Lord our Righteousness. In determining its significance, it is manifest that we ought to be governed by the general course of thought which obtains throughout the passage. And further, we are bound to give it a sense which will not conflict with that which we must give to precisely the same name, "the Lord our Righteousness," when we find it applied (33:16) to the Lord's people—to Jerusalem as the mother of us all. Guided by these principles, we must reject the interpretation which finds in this word "righteousness" the idea of Christ's perfect obedience and merit, as constituting a fund or stock which is transferred to His people, and becomes theirs by substitution—i.e., by being accounted theirs irrespective of their own personal righteousness of heart and life. This idea need not come under special discussion here, farther than to say that it has no sympathy with the context; is altogether foreign from the course of thought in this passage; can by no means be taken as the sense of the same phrase in chap. 33:16; and therefore cannot be found here without violence and caprice. For the same reasons we must reject the analogous construction which finds in this word "righteousness," as applied here to the Messiah, the idea of justification in the sense of the forgiveness of sin, by which sinners become right before the Divine law. This doctrine is amply taught in the New Testament; but the fact of its being true, and taught there, does not prove that it is taught here. The course of thought here holds us to the idea of a just and righteous regal administration, in the strongest contrast with the cruelly unjust reign of the last Jewish kings on David's throne. It looks also to the resulting peace, prosperity and salvation under King Messiah, which stand over against the resulting wickedness and national ruin which came upon the nation through those wicked kings. H. C. "Jehovah is our Righteousness," says the prophet, using a pregnant Hebrew idiom, expressing that He is the ground and source and guarantee of our righteousness. Interpreting his words in the light of the future, and translating them into Christian phraseology, we may say that they teach us to look to God as the source of our righteousness through Christ. Driver. "The Lord is our Righteousness," be it the title of Prince or people, is sufficiently significant to explain its own essential meaning. There would be a transfer of the righteous character of the Ruler to be ruled; their spirit and aims would be identical with His; and He would embody their ideal life and present it to God. Through Him the Divine righteousness would be the possession of the least saint. This evidently could only be perfectly accomplished in Christ. Nothing less than a unity of spirit and life with Jesus Christ, through faith, could achieve such a result. M. Christ secures redemption for us by His life-work and His sacrificial death, and with this comes righteousness. Christ is the incarnation of the Divine righteousness, and breathes that into us by His vital contact with His people. Christ rules in righteousness over a people whom He teaches to follow and obey Him with righteousness. Adeney.—God counts us as righteous, not alone because Christ is our Representative, but because He will restore our souls. He will make us righteous in ourselves as well as before God. And He does this by setting before us in His own life the perfect example, and attracting us thereto by an ever-increasing attraction; and by imparting to us His own Spirit, who nourishes us in all goodness; and by bringing to bear upon us the mightiest motives which can ever control or influence the human heart—love, gratitude, holy fear, bright, blessed hope—all these and yet others; so day by day does He strengthen and confirm the good will which, when we first came to Him, He gave us as His first gift. Thus does He make those righteous whom God for His sake now counts to be so. C. One day, as I was passing into the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul: "Thy righteousness is in heaven;" and methought withal I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand—there, I say, as my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say to me, He wanted my righteousness, for that was just before Him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, "the same yesterday, to-day and forever." Bunyan. How His Righteousness Becomes Ours. 1. As the ground of our forgiveness. Faith in Him as our righteous "Advocate with the Father" delivers us from condemnation. We believe in no "transference of a moral quality." As a man's sins are his own and not another's, so whatever of virtue there may be in him belongs to himself alone. But is it incredible that God should deal with sinful men in the way of mercy because of the perfect righteousness of "the man Christ Jesus"? "He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). There is an instinctive witness in our souls to the fact that if "grace reigns" toward us it must be "through righteousness." This is God's answer to that instinct: "By the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life" (Rom. 5:18). 2. As the inspiring cause of our personal sanctification. The Gospel is God's method of making men righteous, not a scheme by virtue of which He reckons them to be so when they are not. Faith in Christ's mediatorial work as the ground of forgiveness draws the soul irresistibly into living sympathy with Himself. It is impossible to dwell in fellowship with Him without sharing His spirit and becoming "righteous even as He is righteous." Not more surely does the prepared surface receive the picture the sun's rays paint upon it than does the reverent, trustful, loving soul reflect His image. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass," etc. (2 Cor. 3:18). Thus does His righteousness become ours. 3. As the rectifying power in the general life of the world. "A sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of His kingdom," and wherever He reigns the discords of the world are resolved into a blessed harmony. He is the Creator of "the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." W. The "righteousness" of Christ is "imputed" to us, in this sense—that, in the abundance of His mercy, we are to be treated as if we were righteous as Jesus Christ. Let there be no reserve in our faith in this matter. Let no fear nor shame prevent us from rising to the "height of this great argument." If this were language written or spoken by man, in the exultations of excited hope, we might be incredulous as to its truth; but the mouth of the Lord first uttered it, and the pen of the Holy Ghost first recorded it. The righteousness of God! the righteousness of our Redeemer! We to be regarded and treated as if this righteousness were our personal quality and property—as if we were holy as God Himself—holy as His spotless Son! The magnanimity of God is nothing less than this. When He describes the method of His forgiveness, it is with an affluence of promise such as compares only with His own infinity. Not only does He forgive, but forgives freely. He forgives, and remembers not. He forgives, and blots out iniquity. He forgives even to the uttermost. He forgives exceeding abundantly, above all we can ask or think. We read not only of redemption, but of plenteous redemption; not only of mercy, but of tender mercy; not only of kindness, but of loving kindness; and these repeated and multiplied beyond plural forms, into the “multitude of His loving-kindnesses.” To read of grace sufficient for us, grace from the throne, were enough; but this is amplified into “abundant” grace, “exceeding abundant,” “superabundant,” grace “immense,” grace “manifold,” the “riches of His grace,” the “exceeding riches of His grace,” the “riches of the glory of His grace.” It would seem that, on that point, where fallen humanity needed “strong consolation,” all the fulness of God were poured into the very language which assures us of the entire oblivion to which sins “that are past” shall be consigned, and the entire rectification of the fallen in reference to judicial and retributive notice. W. Adams. 7. 8. The sentiment here must be that this deliverance and the consequent blessedness of it will surpass and eclipse the exodus from Egyptian bondage, and hence this will take the place of that as a standing witness and illustration of God’s redeeming power and mercy. That they should be thought of as coming back from the north country to their own land is the natural result of the antithesis between the fruits of those last wicked reigns of the kings of Judah, and of this one all-righteous, wise and prosperous reign of King Messiah. This must needs undo the evils of that; this must restore Zion from the ruin produced by those wicked kings. The wickedness of those vile kings caused the captivity; the righteousness of this good King Messiah must cause the corresponding restoration from captivity. The force of this antithesis naturally determines the form of the expression here; and yet we should greatly err if we were to assume that the Messiah’s work consisted in precisely the literal undoing of those evils—i.e., in restoring Judah from her captivity, and in little or nothing else. This mode of interpretation would teach that the main if not the only work of the Messiah would be to restore the Jews to Palestine and to re-establish Judaism forever. Paul held an entirely different view of Christ’s great mission. The New Testament teaches the very opposite of this. H. C. The deliverance of Israel after the flesh is infinitely surpassed by the rescue of Israel after the Spirit from a tyranny and bondage with which the Egyptian is not worthy of being named. And the remembrance of the former is in great measure swallowed up and defaced by the abolition of those ceremonial rites and festivals; in the place of which have succeeded the two Christian sacraments, and our seasons of public thanksgiving, as commemorations and perpetual monuments of this latter and better redemption. Dean Stanhope. 9-32. The following head of prophecy, though probably delivered at the same time with the foregoing one, treats of a subject entirely different. Jeremiah testifies the horror he felt within him on contemplating the wickedness of the priests and prophets of Judah, and the vengeance which God was about to execute upon them for the corruption which had been diffused through the whole land, by the influence of their evil doctrines and example (verses 9-15). He exhorts the people, in the name of God, not to listen to the words of the prophets, who prophesied of peace when evil was determined, and would infallibly take place, as would in time appear; and charges those prophets with speaking of themselves, and not from the Divine commission (verses 16-22). God asserts His omnipresence and omniscience, and reproveth the audaciousness of the false prophets, who affected to place their own idle dreams on a level with the all-powerful and efficacious word of Divine revelation, declaring Himself against the several species of those impostors (verses 23-32). In fine, He requireth all sorts of persons to desist from an indecency in common use, of styling His word “a burden;” and threatens severely to punish those who, in defiance of this command, should continue to cast such a slur upon it. Blayney. 11. “Profane” in the strong sense of impious, reckless of the fear and honor of God. It was horrible that both prophet and priest, the orders who chiefly bore the religious responsibilities of the nation, to whom men looked for pious example and instruction, were utterly lost to all sense of their duty, and were deeply apostate from God. “Yea, in My house” (the Temple) “have I found altars for Baal,” which sinfulness with penitence, not with pain—that it makes the memory of past transgressions full of solemn joy, because the memory of past transgressions but brings to mind the depth and rushing fulness of that river of love which has swept them all away as far as the east is from the west. A. M. 23,24. The special bearing of these interrogations is upon the case of those false prophets. Do they think, saith the Lord, that I do not know their hearts? Do they flatter themselves that I am too far off to see and to know them? or that they can hide in secret places so as to escape the searching glance of My eye? In these sublime strains the Lord asserts His omniscience and omnipresence. Himself everywhere, His eye looking through all hearts—how vain for the wicked to dream that they can think a thought God will not know, or frame a device that His eye will not pierce through, or do a foul deed which He will not surely see and terribly disclose before the universe? H. C. Two attributes—omnipresence and omniscience—are asserted. But they are so mutually dependent and so inseparable as to be virtually one. By the very necessity of His Being as the infinite Spirit, God is not more in one place or sphere of existence than another, but alike in all, “afar off” as well as “at hand,” filling heaven and earth; and wherever He is, there He is in all the fulness of His perfect intelligence, not observant or cognizant of some things or beings more than others, but having infallible knowledge of all. W. Do not I fill heaven and earth? One of the most striking features of what we call nature is its vastness. Think of plains stretching to the horizon; of mountains piercing the clouds; of roomy continents anchored in roomier oceans; of this whole earth-sphere, with its huge baldric of twenty-five thousand miles, covered with innumerable vegetable products, peopled with men to the potential figure of a thousand millions, swarming still more potentially with the lower animals, and so flooded with microscopic life that almost every cubic inch of air and water and soil is panting with an incalculable population, some of whose smaller individuals multiply themselves into one hundred and seventy billions in four days; gather their five hundred millions in a single drop of water; and yet make up, with the stony cerements of the merest fraction of their fossil ancestry, whole mountains and geologic beds. Such is our world. Out in yonder vault, find that millionfold world which we call the sun, with its invisible retinue of a hundred earths; out in yonder vault, when night falls, find a thousand suns similarly attended; with tube Galilean, thousands more; with tube Herschelian, millions more; with tube Rossian, billions more. Is this the end? Not even Darwin doubts that successive improvements in the space-penetrating power of our instruments would go on indefinitely opening up firmaments at every step. Where is the verge of the universe? Who would undertake the roll-call of its orbs? Who dares to say that he could count through the grand total of its firmaments, even though he should count a thousand years? Figures go but a small way toward expressing the dimensions of such a universe—whether one considers the number of its worlds or the expanse of space through which they are distributed. Our world spins round its ellipse, of well-nigh two hundred million axis, without ever having a neighbor nearer than thirty millions of miles, save its own moon. The interval between our sun and the nearest star of the same galactic nebula is twelve hundred thousand times this distance. And then the distance from nebula to nebula—it is absolutely awful. Our telescopes sweep a sphere of stars whose diameter is seven millions of years, as light travels. Calculation covers its abashed face with its great wings in the presence of these overwhelming amplitudes. And such is nature! Certainly such a universe as this does not cry out against the existence of a God whose essential attribute is immensity. On the contrary, it is just such a universe as one would have expected to come from such a being. Nay, given a Deity who is practically at home in every point of space, whose attributes are laid out on a scale of unbounded vastness, to whom it is just as easy to make and govern a trillion of worlds as it is a grain of sand, and the imperial fitness of things would demand that He people vacancy with very much that profusion and breadth of being that we actually see. The work ought to express and honor the workman. And when I am told of an author of nature who is immense with a threefold boundlessness of intelligence, might and years; so that to Him our great and small, our far and near, our centre and circumference—though that circumference sweep around all the expanses of modern astronomy—are practically the same; so that He can properly challenge, “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” when I am told of this, and I then place myself out under the open dome of nature, amid its exuberant objects and marvellous stretches, I feel that the doctrine matches facts; that the theory has in its favor a comprehensive verisimilitude and presumption; that nature, instead of saying, "There is no immense God," significantly asks, in a tone of encouragement and with a look of incipient expectation, "Is there not such a Being?" . . . A God who Himself has no duration to speak of—if there may be such a God—would never have stored His nature with such mighty cycles; a God who Himself never did a swift thing would never have set His laws to spurring on planets and suns so astoundingly; a God who Himself never did a slow thing would never have yoked such slow-footed forces to events, as we observe actually dragging at some of them. It is only a God who has substantial foreword on His hands, and who on occasion can lighten and on occasion can linger ineffably along the highway of His purposes, who is properly represented by such a nature. E. F. Burr. 28,29. If any of those false prophets have a dream, let them tell it as a mere dream, a simple fancy of the mind in sleep; but let them and let all who hear them distinguish broadly between such dreams and My words. If I give My word to any prophet, let him utter it faithfully at whatever cost—a suggestion not without its use to Jeremiah. What hath the chaff to do with the wheat, saith the Lord? Let chaff go for chaff and nothing better. Never let it arrogate a place for itself with the wheat and claim to be wheat. In verse 29 the point on which these questions bear might be either the energy of God's word in its power on human hearts in general, or its energy when God puts it in the hearts of His prophets to deliver to lost men. The former seems on the whole the preferable view as setting forth the essential, eternal distinction between the wheat and the chaff. Yet the latter has a great truth in it—viz., that God's word in the heart of a prophet was with burning power, as Jeremiah had occasion to say. (See 20: 9.) But this latter thought is really included under the former. H. C. 28. Speak My word faithfully.** The weapons which the pulpit-speaker wields are truths and facts, than which the Divine Mind knows none more vast and momentous; are principles unchangeable as the pillars of heaven, on which God conducts His own great affairs; are motives which the divinity Himself obeys; are interests which are transcendent, immeasurable, infinite. He brings messages which involve all good, all evil; all time, all eternity. He brings messages from Jehovah. C. White. The Book is full of vital principles, resting upon great and permanently fruitful facts. In the use of this treasury it is the preacher's business to bring forth things new and old, to be progressive and conservative, to spread a fresh and inviting banquet. The old statements must not be discarded or ignored; but they must not be mechanically repeated. Their vital energy must be eliminated; and in this very way there will be real progress, a constantly clearer and better apprehension of what the real mind of Christ is. Behrends. From the pulpit there should now and ever flow a pure river of water of life clear as crystal. The grand doctrine of justification by faith only should be uplifted as a beacon on a thousand hills. Hearers should be distinctly taught our grand verities: the Father's eternal love, the terms of the unfailing covenant, the Son's perfect and finished work, the Spirit's indwelling, the beauty and simplicity and purport of our Sacraments, the evidence of faith, the might of prayer, the delight of praise, the labor of love, the patience of hope, the loveliness of purity, the high walk of uprightness, the solemnity of worship, the happiness of godly life. Where such faithful teaching abounds there is no room for fear. Them that honor God, God will honor. Law. What is wanted now, and silently called for, is the preaching of just such a Christ as the charities, and miracles, and fellow-tendernesses, and death, and resurrection of Jesus put in outline before us: God in Christ reconciling the world; He that could suffer, the just for the unjust, to bring us unto God; He that could endure enemies and came down from heaven to bear the curse of their bad lot to gain them; He that loved the poor and feared not the great; He that flavored the world by living in it; He that went through society and made His quickening, medicating power felt everywhere; He that has gone up to prepare mansions and to set His judgment-seat for the world. Oh, if He could now be preached, as He might be and some time will, what a cleaving to Him would there be! And the supernatural glory of His life and works, instead of being an objection, would only kindle the greater fire. Bushnell. Preach Jesus Christ. Preach Him in the meekness and loveliness of His heart; preach Him in the grandeur of His death and the glory of His resurrection; preach Him in the beauty of His conduct; preach Him in the sublime exactions of His morality; preach Him for the remission of sins; preach Him as the power of an endless life. Preach Him as Paul preached Him to Jew and Greek, barbarian and Roman; not with enticing speculations, but in the demonstration and the power of the Holy Ghost; out of the depths of an experience growing richer and a knowledge growing clearer and larger; out of the peace of God which passeth understanding and the love of God which passeth knowledge; by gentle, lucid and courageous speech; by judicious and heroic silence; by patience and fortitude and faith; by forbearance and by deed, preach Him the life and light of men. Preach Him as He preached Himself, the shepherd of lost sheep, the likeness of the Father, the friend of sinners, the Redeemer of mankind. C. J. Little. We would fain have the ministry of the Word of God surrounded with all that can serve to win attention, command reverence and excite interest; we should be alert to look out for such things, and to secure them so far as we may; but let us see to it that they be but subordinate, that they all are used as aids to what is far higher and more important than themselves—that within this husk the pure grain of God's Word is enshrined and preserved. What is the good of any preaching or instruction, however pleasing or attractive it may be, that does not set the pure wheat of God's Word before hungry souls? Souls must live, and they cannot live on chaff. C. Fill with food, not flowers. Hungry men cannot eat flowers. Food, not chaff. Chaff is worse than flowers; they are at least pleasant to look at before they fade, but dry, tasteless preaching gives neither pleasure nor profit. The finest of the wheat is in the granary, and only needs serving out. But fill, do not give short measure. There need be no stint. There is plenty. The less the mind that comes, the more pains should be taken that it has a full sack. T. Champness. Grace is contented with the simplicity of the Gospel; gifts are not contented therewithal. You see how it is with a child that comes into a corn-field; he is mightily taken with the blue or red weeds or the daisies that grow there; but now, when the husbandman comes, he looks at the corn, and is not so much taken with the blue and red weeds, or the company of daisies, but is taken with the corn itself. So take a man that hath gifts only, and bring him to a sermon or a prayer, and if there be any fine expressions, any daisies, he is much taken with them; he prizeth and magnifieth them, and he hangs on them. But now bring a man that hath grace to a prayer or to a sermon, and he looks at the corn; he doth not look at the daisies so much, but at the spirituality and power of those things that are there delivered. Gurnall. The Gospel is either true history or it is a consummate fraud; it is either a reality or an imposition. Christ was what He professed to be or He was an impostor. There is no other alternative. His spotless life, His earnest enforcement of the truth, His suffering in its defence, forbid us to suppose that He was following an illusion of a heated brain. Every act of His pure and holy life shows that He was the author of truth, the advocate of truth, the earnest defender of truth and the uncomplaining sufferer for truth. Now, considering the purity of His doctrines, the simplicity of His life and the sublimity of His death, is it possible that He would have died for an illusion? In all His preaching, the Saviour made no popular appeals. His discourses were all directed to the individual. Christ and His apostles sought to impress upon every man the conviction that he must stand or fall alone—he must live for himself and die for himself, and give up his account to the omniscient God as though he were the only dependent creature in the universe. The Gospel leaves the individual sinner alone with himself and his God. To his own Master he stands or falls. He has nothing to hope from the aid and sympathy of associates. The deluded advocates of new doctrines do not so preach. Christ and His apostles, had they been deceivers, would not have so preached. If clergymen in our day would return to the simplicity of the Gospel, and preach more to individuals and less to the crowd, there would not be so much complaint of the decline of true religion. Many of the ministers of the present day take their text from Paul, and preach from the newspapers. When they do so, I prefer to enjoy my own thoughts, rather than to listen. I want my pastor to come to me in the spirit of the Gospel, saying, "You are mortal; your probation is brief; your work must be done speedily. You are immortal, too. You are hastening to the bar of God! the Judge standeth before the door." When I am thus admonished, I have no disposition to muse or to sleep. Daniel Webster. There are two ways of regarding a sermon, either as a human composition or a Divine message. If once we begin to regard the preacher, whatever his faults, as a man sent with a message to us, which it is a matter of life or death whether we hear or refuse; if we look upon him as set in charge over many spirits in danger of ruin, and having allowed to him but an hour or two in the seven days to speak to them; if we make some endeavor to conceive how precious these hours ought to be to him, a small vantage on the side of God, after His flock has been exposed for six days together to the full weight of the world's temptation, he has but thirty minutes to get at the separate hearts of a thousand men, to convince them of their weaknesses, to shame them for all their sins, to warn them of all their dangers, to try this way and that to stir the hard fastenings of those doors where the Master Himself has stood and knocked yet none opened, and to call at the openings of those dark streets where Wisdom herself hath stretched forth her hand and no man regarded—thirty minutes to raise the dead in—let us but once understand and feel this; and we shall wish that His words may be simple even when they are sweetest, and the place from which He speaks like a marble rock in the desert, about which the people have gathered in their thirst. Ruskin. His sole object will be to make the message clearly understood, and to wrap its burning imperative around the hearer's conscience. The axe must be sharpened, that something may be cut down. The rifle must be loaded, and sighted with the care of an expert that the bullet may speed unerringly to its mark. The bandages and balm must be prepared that wounded hearts may be heeled. Not reputation, but righteousness, must be the preacher's ambition. He cannot be too careful in his analysis. He cannot have too much living logic. He must remember that nothing can bind the will which is not true to the reason; that the understanding supplies the rule of judgment to the conscience. He cannot have too much healthy passion; and he will have all the feeling he can take care of if moral verities are real to him. But he must lose himself in his hearers. He must seek them, not theirs, not even their applause, least of all himself. It must be his habitual passion to save them, to save them from sin, to save them here and now, to bring them face to face with God in Jesus Christ, until they discern their dignities and duties as the sons and daughters of God, and live accordingly. It is not the future, but the present with which he deals. It is not heaven which he is called upon to people, but to Christianize mortal men and women, and convert earthly society, in all its multitudinous activities and competitions, into the kingdom of God. It is a historical judgment and a historical redemption which constitute the burden of ancient prophecy, and which Paul has so graphically sketched in the first chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. They are in time; we have been disposed to push them to the end of time. And so we talk of a final judgment, as if there were no great white throne now; and we talk of a future salvation, as if man's great business was to prepare for death, as if heaven were some fairy, shadowy country whose glories were never meant to make this planet radiant. But the New Jerusalem which John saw in his exile was not a city in celestial places, nor did it hang in mid air. It came down from God, out of heaven upon earth. Rome was to yield to its immortal sovereignty. The gates of pearl, the walls of jasper, the streets of gold, the river of life proceeding from the throne of God and of the lamb, and the tree of life whose leaves are for healing of nations, are symbols, one and all, of an earthly empire of righteousness. It is a historical triumph which the apocalypse heralds, coming through broken seals and emptied vials of judgment, and sounding trumpets, by famine, and earthquake, and the convulsions of nations and the overthrow of Babylon, and the sealing of the pit and the resurrection of martyrs, and the second death; just as Daniel had seen the stone smite the image of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay symbols of unsanctified political power, grinding it to powder, and filling the whole earth; and to secure that historical triumph of righteousness in this land, and in all lands, is the sole work to which we are to spend our energies. Not to get men into heaven, but to get heaven into men, is our business; not, as has been well said, "to keep them out of hell, but to keep hell out of them" is our commission. Behrends. 29. "Is not My word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" Here we have the native inherent energy of Divine truth, set forth under appropriate figures. It has power to consume all our inward corruptions, and to kindle upon the altar of our hearts the pure flame of love and zeal; it has power to reduce to contrition the stoutest and most obdurate heart of man, even the heart which seems to promise most resistance to its agency. E. M. G. The word of God is like fire. The law was a fiery law (De. 33:2), and of the Gospel Christ says, "I am come to send fire on the earth" (Luke 12:49). Fire has different effects, according as the matter is on which it works; it hardens clay, but softens wax; it consumes the dross, but purifies the gold; so the word of God is to some a savor of life unto life, to others of death unto death. God appeals here to the consciences of those to whom the word was sent, "Is not My word like fire? Has it not been so to you? (Zech. 1:6). Speak as you have found." It is compared likewise to a hammer breaking the rock in pieces. The unhumbled heart of man is like a rock; if it will not be melted by the word of God as the fire, it will be broken to pieces by it as the hammer. Whatever opposition is given to the word will be borne down and broken to pieces. H. In all lands and ages a Bible ministry has been a ministry of power. "Is not My word like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" Yes, both fire and hammer, both shield and sword, both spade and pruning hook, both bread and water. Wonderful in the variety of its adaptations is the word of the Lord! With it we are strong, with it we are wise. With it we are ready for all duties and for all conflicts. And the helmet of brass that has protected us through life will be a pillow of down to rest our heads on in the hour of death. A home where the Bible is studied and obeyed will be thoroughly furnished even if there are no carved and upholstered sofas in it. Bible truth and Bible love will adorn the rudest environment and make palatable the coarsest fare. A heart in which the Bible is enshrined will be a holy and a happy heart, though it beat in a body racked with pain. A Christian filled with the Bible and feeding daily on its promises will be strong in the Lord. A plant of righteousness rooted in the Scriptures will be "like a tree by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." The great want in the Church to-day is a more thorough Gospel furnishing—a more systematic and prayerful study of the Scriptures. Interior. In the forty years of my ministry I have only touched the hem of the garment of Divine truth; but what virtue has flowed out of it! The word is like its Author, infinite, immeasurable, without end. If you were ordained to be a preacher throughout eternity, you would have before you a theme equal to everlasting demands. Spurgeon. 30. The crime of these false prophets lay in stealing these words, these prophetic formulæ. They are said to steal them every one from his neighbor, but originally they came from the true prophets, and really from God Himself. Then they passed them round among themselves from hand to hand—stolen goods—used by them to make the people think they were God's true prophets, and bore His messages. 31. To "use their tongues" is here to make too free use of them—to misuse them. How they misused them will be understood from the remarks just made in notes on verse 30. 32. If any one—prophet, priest or of the people—should ask Jeremiah what "the burden of the Lord" is, in the well-understood sense, What message of calamity does the Lord send? he was told what to answer: I will even forsake you, saith the Lord. The utmost depth of ruin lay in that burden. To be forsaken of the Lord was the direst calamity that could befall them, or any of us either. 35-37. In these verses the Lord instructs the people what phraseology they may fitly use, and solemnly cautions them against the usage of the false prophets above referred to which had grown up into a grievous abuse. They might properly say, "What hath the Lord answered" or "what hath He spoken?" But they must not say, "The burden of the Lord," since this phrase belonged exclusively to God and His true prophets, and the wicked perversion of it by any false prophet would be done at his own peril. 40. If they persisted in abusing these solemn words, sacredly appropriated to signify revelations direct from God, He would terribly punish them, forgetting, forsaking them and casting them forth from their city and land to make them a perpetual reproach and shame. This should be the righteous doom of the false prophets, and of all who gave currency to their delusions by abetting their objects and helping them to assume the phraseology and reputation of true prophets. H. C. 24:1 THE LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of the LORD; after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad. Then said the LORD unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, that cannot be eaten, they are so bad. And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good. For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart. And as the bad figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt: I will even give them up to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them. And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers. Chap. 24. This is one of those prophecies which were delivered after the reign of Jehoiakim, and in the former or peaceable part of Zedekiah's reign, before he renounced his allegiance to the king of Babylon. We cannot be mistaken in placing this chapter at the very beginning of Zedekiah's reign, within the first year at least, since the vision is dated from after the carrying away of Jeconiah and the people with him into captivity, as from an event which happened but a little before. Blayney.—The date and subject of this short chapter are obvious—the date being after the second deportation of captives to Babylon at the close of the short reign of Jehoiachin ("Jeconiah"), and, indeed, after Zedekiah, his successor, had ascended the throne. The subject is the character of those who were carried to Babylon in contrast with the character of those who remained behind. H. C. This short chapter helps us to put a very comfortable construction upon a great many long ones, by showing us that the same providence which to some is a savor of death unto death, may by the grace and blessing of God be made to others a savor of life unto life; and that though God's people share with others in the same calamity, yet that it is not the same to them that it is to others, but is designed for their good, and shall issue in their good; to them it is a correcting rod in the hand of a tender Father, while to others it is an avenging sword in the hand of a righteous Judge. H During the miserable eleven years of Zedekiah's reign, the prophet had consistently declared that not the king and the nobles and people of Jerusalem were God's true Israel, but the exiles carried captive to Babylon with Jeconiah. In chap. 24 he compares these latter to a basket of very good figs, like those first ripe, while Zedekiah and his people were but the refuse, "very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad." I need not say how irritating such a method of treatment would be to both king and nobles; but at Babylon it had a different effect. Jeremiah, though not without opposition, became the great authority there. He wrote the exiles also a letter (chap. 29), directing them to dwell quietly at Babylon, and build houses, and plant gardens, and take wives, and in all things prepare for a lengthened sojourn of seventy years. They were even "to seek the peace of Babylon," and settle down as loyal and industrious citizens. And then God would grant them a return to their land; in them the fortunes of Israel would revive; for they were Jehovah's people, the possessors of the promise, and not Zedekiah and his court, and the dwellers at Jerusalem, for whom Jeremiah predicts nothing but evil and misery, and again contemptuously calls them " vile figs, too bad to be eaten" (verse 17.) As time rolled on, and the destruction of Jerusalem confirmed the truth of the prophet's words, his prediction of a restoration after seventy years became the great solace of the exiles. They read with pleasure how God had chosen them as the depositories of the promise, even while Jerusalem was still standing; they saw that that promise was not bound up so much with places and things as with true and believing hearts. And gradually a change passed over them. No doubt among the exiles there were many whose characters had been formed by Jeremiah, and who wrought heartily for the same ends. The children of the men who had stood by Josiah in his reforms were the dominant leaders at Babylon. And there they prevailed. Instead of the old longing for idolatry, a passionate devotion to the one true spiritual God became inwrought deeply into their hearts. And Jeremiah they felt to be, as in truth he was, the deliverer of their nation. The man who in life had been branded as a traitor and falsehearted, became the object of their fervent love. R. P. S. 1-3. The prophet indicates that these baskets of figs are seen in vision only, and have no reality in actual life. He did not say, " The Lord sent me to gather one basket of first ripe figs, very good, and another of foul rotten figs, and I did so ;" but he says, " The Lord showed me"—i.e., by the Spirit upon me caused me to see two baskets, etc. The deportation of captives with Jeconiah took away the better class—the princes, artisans and mechanics who had more stamina of character, and would be more useful to the king of Babylon in his great building schemes, than the lower, less skilled, less industrious classes. The author of 2 Kings (in chap. 24:14-16) was careful to state precisely this fact—that Nebuchadnezzar took away all the better people, " the mighty of the land," the skilful mechanics as well as the princes. The selection and removal of these classes would not only augment the working force in Babylon, but would lessen the working force in Jerusalem. 4-7. The basket of good figs represented these better classes taken away to Babylon. In His kind and wise providence the Lord had taken this method to sift the nation and save the more precious grain for replanting in the land after the captivity. The Lord twice sifted the Jewish people to get good seed wherewith to replant the land; first, in taking away, under Nebuchadnezzar, the more industrious and skilful citizens, who may, on this very ground, be safely presumed to have been less corrupt morally, and less debased by idolatry, than the indolent classes. Laziness and idleness are Satan's recruiting officers. He never fails to find work for idle hands to do. Then, again, the Lord sifted the captive population when the decree of Cyrus invited them to return to their land. The men of faith in God, the men who cherished most fondly in their hearts the love of their holy city and sacred Temple and the classic memories of their heroic dead, would tear themselves away from their Chaldean homes and their accumulated comforts, and strike out upon the hardships of a wilderness journey and of a new settlement. This call would also somewhat test their physical energy. Invalids and men broken down by their vices or their age would shrink from these hardships. These better people taken to Babylon, the Lord would meet there with His blessing. H. C. 5. God owns their captivity to be His doing; whoever were the instruments of it, He ordered and directed it; I have sent them out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans. It is God that puts His gold into the furnace to be tried; His hand is, in an especial manner, to be eyed in the afflictions of good people. The judge orders the malefactor into the hand of an executioner, but the father corrects the child with his own hand. Even this uncomfortable captivity God intended for their benefit, and we are sure that His intentions are never frustrated: I have sent them into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. It seemed to be every way for their hurt, not only as it was the ruin of their estates, honors and liberties, parted them from their relations and friends, and put them under the power of their enemies and oppressors, but as it sunk their spirits, discouraged their faith, deprived them of the benefit of God's oracles and ordinances, and exposed them to temptations; and yet it was designed for their good, and proved so, in the issue, as to many of them. By their afflictions they were humbled under the hand of God, taught to pray, and turned from their iniquity, particularly they were cured of their inclination to idolatry; and thus it was good for them that they were afflicted. 6. God assures them of His protection in their trouble, and a glorious deliverance out of it in due time (verse 6). Being sent into captivity for their good, they shall not be lost there; but it shall be with them as it is with gold which the refiner puts into the furnace. He has his eye upon it while it is there, and it is a careful eye, to see that it sustain no damage: I will set Mine eyes upon them for good, to order everything for the best. He engages to prepare them for these temporal mercies which He designed for them, by bestowing spiritual mercies upon them. It is this that will make their captivity be for their good; this shall be both the improvement of their affliction, and their qualification for deliverance. When our troubles are sanctified to us, then we may be sure that they will end well. Now that which is promised is that they should be better acquainted with God; they should learn more of God by His providences in Babylon than they had learned by all His oracles and ordinances in Jerusalem, thanks to Divine grace, for if that had not wrought mightily upon them in Babylon, they would forever have forgotten God. It is here promised, I will give them, not so much a head to know Me, as a heart to know Me, for the right knowledge of God consists not in notion and speculation, but in the convictions of the practical judgment directing and governing the will and affections. H. A heart to know the Lord. It was "for good" that God sent the captive portion of His people "into the land of the Chaldeans" (verse 5). The germs of the better life of the future were preserved in them, and their very tribulations were the instruments of His gracious purpose and blessings in disguise. In the "evil figs"—the refuse left behind—there was nothing worth preserving (verse 8). Of all the beneficent Divine purposes, this had in it the promise of highest good—"I will give them an heart to know Me, that I am the Lord." W. 8-10. On the other hand, the remnant that were left in the land, including those also who went into Egypt, were the dregs of the population, and God let them gravitate to the very bottom of human existence, and finally become extinct. They went into Egypt in defiance of the Lord's repeated warnings by His prophet. Their going was itself proof of their vain confidence in themselves and in human help, in contempt of the word of the Lord their God. Hence they could rationally expect nothing better than His exterminating curse. It never can be well for men to press their way in a course of defiance against the warnings of Jehovah. What can result from such a course but ruin! This chapter is a beautiful lesson on the ways of God in His providence over nations and entire classes of men. With far-reaching plans, with perfect command of all the agencies of war and of captivity, with full control over the master mind of Nebuchadnezzar, and of his schemes for building great Babylon, the Lord makes all these agencies subserve His purpose of sifting the Jewish people, and taking out for His future use all the nobler elements. These He purposed to convert to Himself, under the discipline of this fearful captivity, and then to lead them back to rebuild His city and Temple, to reconstruct the Hebrew nation, and to nurture the germs of their religious life, till in the fulness of time, the Messiah should come. What cannot this all-wise and all-pervading providence of God accomplish! Was ever anything too hard for the Lord! Let such manifestations of His Divine power and wisdom inspire our confidence afresh in His resources now and evermore to fulfil all His plans of mercy for His Zion and for this lost world. H. C. The exposition and application of this vision. God intended by it to raise the dejected spirits of those that were gone into captivity, by assuring them of a happy return, and to humble and awaken the proud and secure spirits of those who continued yet in Jerusalem, by assuring them of a miserable captivity. The good figs were the first ripe; these represented the pious captives, that seemed first ripe for ruin, for they went first into captivity, but should prove first ripe for mercy, and their captivity should help to ripen them; these are pleasing to God, as good figs are to us, and shall be carefully preserved for use. The best men may be the greatest sufferers. The good figs represent the Jews who suffered most severely from the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, who were torn from their homes, robbed of their property, driven into captivity; the bad figs represent the seemingly more fortunate Jews over whose head the tide of invasion passes, leaving them still in their homes and in quiet, and also those who escaped from it entirely by a flight into Egypt. We may often notice that very good people are not only not spared, but suffer the most severe calamities. "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." Therefore chastisement is an evidence of God's love. Good men should understand this, and not be surprised at the advent of trouble, but expect it; not be dismayed at the incongruity of it, but recognize its fitness; not despair of themselves, and think that they must be hypocrites after all, nor doubt and distrust God, but submit to what is clearly foretold and wisely arranged. Adeney. It is to be noticed also that the figure chosen to set forth the difference between the good and the bad in Israel is taken from fruit. It was something presented as the result of growth and in connection with culture. The question was suggested how such a difference should come between the good and the bad. For if trees of the same sort grow in the same soil and have the same attention, and the same external influences, how comes some of the fruit to be very good and some very bad? Notice also the sharpness of the distinction. These fruits were either good or bad. To be excluded from one is to be included in the other. There is no third, no medium class. This exactly agrees with the way of speaking in the New Testament, especially by Jesus Himself—e.g., the seed in the good and bad ground, the sheep and goats, the good kinds of fish and the bad ones, the five wise and the five foolish virgins. It is of the first importance to bear in mind that the imperceptible gradations, as we reckon them, count for nothing with God. There are only two kinds of hearts, the good and the bad. Y. 25 : 1 THE word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah; the same was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; the which Jeremiah the prophet spake unto all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even unto this day, these three and twenty years, the word of the LORD hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising up early and speaking; but ye have not hearkened. And the LORD hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear; saying, Return ye now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given unto you and to your fathers, from of old and even for evermore: and go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the work of your hands; and I will do you no hurt. Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the LORD; that ye might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts: Because ye have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and I will send unto Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it desolate for ever. And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them, even of them: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands. For thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto me: Take the cup of the wine of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. Then took I the cup at the LORD's hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD 18 had sent me: to wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as it is 19 this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people; 20 and all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land 21 of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; Edom, 22 and Moab, and the children of Ammon; and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Zidon, 23 and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea; Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that 24 have the corners of their hair polled; and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the 25 mingled people that dwell in the wilderness; and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of 26. Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth: and the 27 king of Sheshach shall drink after them. And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, 28 because of the sword which I will send among you. And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Ye 29 shall surely drink. For, lo, I begin to work evil at the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword 30 upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the LORD of hosts. Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them, The LORD shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar against his fold; he shall 31 give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth. A noise shall come even to the end of the earth; for the LORD hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; as for the wicked, he will give them to the sword, saith the LORD. 32. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great 33 tempest shall be raised up from the uttermost parts of the earth. And the slain of the LORD shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the face of the 34 ground. Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in ashes, ye principal of the flock: for the days of your slaughter are fully come, and I will break you in pieces, and ye 35 shall fall like a pleasant vessel. And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the princi- 36 pal of the flock to escape. A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the howling of the prin- 37 cipal of the flock! for the LORD layeth waste their pasture. And the peaceable folds are 38 brought to silence because of the fierce anger of the LORD. He hath forsaken his covert, as the lion: for their land is become an astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppressing sword, and because of his fierce anger. Chap. 25. The date of this chapter is definitely given—viz., in the fourth year of Jehoiakim was also the first of King Nebuchadnezzar—the very year in which the first great invasion of Judea was made by the combined forces of Chaldea, Moab, Ammon and Syria. (See 2 K. 24: 1, 2.) The great central thought of the chapter is, Jehovah, King of the nations of the earth, judging and punishing them for their iniquities; beginning here with His own covenant but now apostate people; continuing and widening the sweep of His judgments, so as to include Egypt and all those powers of Western Asia which had allied themselves with Egypt and Judea against the Chaldean empire; and then, after seventy years, turning His hand in righteous retribution to judge and punish the Chaldeans and proud Babylon. How God would bring about these visitations of judgment; how He would pass around among all the nations the wine-cup of His wrath, and make them drink to their own infatuation, and reeling, and madness, so that they would fall an easy prey to those enemies whom the Lord would use as His rod for their destruction, are also embraced in this chapter. H. C. This chapter seems to come next in succession to chaps. 22, 23. It is dated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and most probably belonged to the earliest part of that year. For the defeat of the Egyptians at Carchemish, and the subsequent taking of Jerusalem, are both placed in the same year. But from verse 9 I think it may be concluded that Nebuchadnezzar had but just entered upon his expedition, and had not yet carried into execution any of those designs for which God there says He would "send and take" him. The prophet reproveth the Jews for their disregard of the Divine calls to repentance (verses 1-7). He foretelleth their subjugation, together with that of the neighboring nations, to the king of Babylon for seventy years, and the fall of the Babylonish empire at that period (verses 8-14). The same is foreshown under the symbol of the cup of God's wrath, with which Jeremiah is sent, perhaps in a vision, unto all the nations, which are enumerated at large, to make them drink of it to their utter subversion (verses 15-29). And the like prophecy is the third time repeated in a strain of sublime and poetic imagery (verse 30 to the end). Blayney. 3,4. In verse 3 the prophet solemnly reminds the people how long he had been bearing to them the messages of the Lord, even since the thirteenth year of Josiah—then twenty-three years. Josiah reigned thirty-one years; Jehoahaz three months; Jehoiakim was now in his fourth year. Hence the footing stands thus: Under Josiah say nineteen; under the next two kings four—equal to twenty three. He reminds them also that he had brought these messages in solemn earnestness, rising up early and speaking, as one awake betimes, upon whose heart the burden lay so heavily that his sleep was short and the morning hour found him waiting and full of ardor for his work. But they had not hearkened. Other prophets, too, Zephaniah and Habakkuk, had the Lord sent to them. H. C. Jeremiah had been a constant preacher among them twenty-three years; he began in the thirteenth year of Josiah, who reigned thirty-one years; so that he prophesied about eighteen or nineteen years in his reign, then in the reign of Jehoahaz, and now four years of Jehoiakim's reign. God keeps an account, whether we do or no, how long we have enjoyed the means of grace; and the longer we have enjoyed them, the heavier will our account be if we have not improved them. H. 9. Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant. Kings and princes are the great instruments of providence with respect to human affairs. Some of them God raises up to be executioners of His judgments upon sinful people; such was he of whom God saith (Hos. 13:11), "I gave thee a king in Mine anger." Such was Nebuchadnezzar here spoken of, whom God calls His "servant," because he "wrought for Him," as God speaks concerning him (Ezek. 29:20)—that is, he executed God's judgments upon Tyre, God making use of his ambition and desire of conquest, and prospering his arms, in order to the punishment of the neighboring countries for their sins. See a like instance in the king of Assyria, whom God calls "the rod of His anger" (Isa. 10:5). W. Lowth. 9-11. There is not the slightest doubt that Jeremiah, following Micah, who lived a century before, foretold the destruction and captivity in the Chaldean period, and added the notice of a return after seventy years. This is recorded in Jer. 25:9-11; and the circumstances are such, that if the delivery of this prophecy be denied, no event in the life of the prophets can be accepted. Now this issue could not have been foreseen by any natural means. The return of a departed people was against all historical analogies, as not only the case of the Ten Tribes showed, but the existing usage on which recent discoveries have thrown so much light, of occupying such conquered lands by an exchange of peoples, that admitted usually of no succeeding break or disturbance. Now the utterance of Jeremiah was fulfilled by the edict of Cyrus (R.C. 536), a fact which is not contested; and all that is required is to suppose that Jeremiah, instead of counting from the last siege and captivity (R.C. 588), counts from the first (R.C. 606), as captivity then really began. Cairns. 10. The sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. In the East the people grind their corn at break of day; and on going out in a morning, one hears everywhere the noise of the mill, accompanied with the voice and songs of those that grind. Sir J. Chardin.—There is an affecting contrast in the text. Gloomy shall be the silence of the morning, melancholy the shadows of the evening; no cheerful noise to animate the one, no enlivening ray to brighten the darkness of the other. Desolation shall everywhere reign. Harmer. 10,11. In Oriental life the sound of the millstone is heard in every family, each one doing its grinding with its own hand-mill. So the light of a candle is among the necessaries of comfortable life. Hence not only should all joyous sounds cease from those lands, but all the sounds of busy common life, indicating that the country was left void of inhabitants—an utter desolation. "An astonishment" of course means an occasion for astonishment to all the people of the earth; a marvel before the world. The duration of this wide sway of Babylon and of the Chaldean power should be seventy years. The records of profane history concur with the testimony of Scripture to confirm the fact here stated. Beginning with the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the duration of that dynasty was seventy years, closing with its subversion by Cyrus at the head of the combined armies of Media and Persia. In the line of profane history we have a witness, every way competent and worthy, in the so-called "Canon of Ptolemy," which contains a table of the reigns of the several monarchs of Babylon from B.C. 747 to B.C. 331—the end of the Persian dynasty. "This ancient document," remarks George Rawlinson, "which has always stood high in authority, has recently been confirmed in so many points by the inscriptions found in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, that its authentic character is established beyond all possibility of cavil and dispute." In this canon we have the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, forty-three years; of Evilmerodach, two; of Neriglissar, four; of Nabonned (alias Labynetus), seventeen; and jointly with him in the closing period of his reign, his son, Belshazzar; in all equal to sixty-six; an approximation to the scriptural record which seems to make the time about seventy. In the line of Scripture history, we have the authority of Daniel (9:1, 2), who in the first year after the fall of the Chaldean dynasty, finding by the prophecies of Jeremiah that the captivity was set for seventy years, saw in his own personal history that this period was near its close. He went to Babylon with the first captives in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and of course knew that he had been there then about seventy years. The length of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, the most important item in this chronological series, is in like manner confirmed by the concurrent testimony of both sacred and profane history. Sacred history gives us first the years of Jehoiakim coincident with Nebuchadnezzar—i.e., eleven, less four, equal to seven. Add to this the years of the captivity of Jehoiachin, his immediate successor—viz., thirty-six; the amount is forty-three. In the line of profane history, not only the "Canon of Ptolemy," but the testimony of Berosus makes his reign forty-three years. Of course in our text (verse 11) "the king of Babylon" is not to be restricted to any one king, but embraces the dynasty of Babylonian kings down to the Persian rule. See a different but accurate form of stating the same general fact in chap. 27:6, 7. H. C. 11. Those nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. The fixing of the time during which the captivity should last would be of great use, not only for the confirmation of the prophecy, when the event (which in this particular could by no human sagacity be foreseen) should exactly answer the prediction, but for the comfort of the people of God in their calamity, and the encouragement of faith and prayer. Daniel, who was himself a prophet, had an eye to it (Dan. 9:2). Nay, God Himself had an eye to it (2 Chron. 36:22), for therefore He stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, that the word spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished. Known unto God are all His works, from the beginning of the world; which appears by this that when He has thought fit, some of them have been made known to His servants the prophets, and by them to His Church. 12-14. The ruin of Babylon, at last, is here likewise foretold, as it had been long before by Isaiah. The destroyers must themselves be destroyed and the rod thrown into the fire, when the correcting work is done with it. This shall be done when seventy years are accomplished, for the destruction of Babylon must make way for the deliverance of the captives. H. And so it came to pass. After seventy years the Medo-Persian power subjugated Babylon, and struck the first fatal blow at her supremacy and pride. She never rose again to her former splendor. Not many years passed before the doom of desolation marched on apace to its accomplishment, and Babylon went rapidly down toward utter extinction. During more than two thousand years past it has been only a mass of ruins. Verse 13 seems to allude to those extended prophecies of Jeremiah "against all the nations" which we find in chaps. 46-51. Naturally the critics raise the question how this allusion can be accounted for in this place? Were those prophecies already written at this time? Or is this reference precisely prophetic—i.e., in anticipation of portions yet to be written and embraced in this Book of Jeremiah? Or was this clause added by the compiler of these prophecies after all the materials of the volume had been written? I incline to the last-named supposition—viz., that the last half of verse 13 was added by the compiler. In verse 14, the rather unusual phrase, "Serve themselves of them," means to exact service of them; to compel them to serve. The tables shall be turned; the relation between the parties reversed. Whereas Babylon made those nations her servants for seventy years, they shall make Babylon serve during other long periods thereafter. (See chap. 27:6, 7 and Isa. 14:2.) 15,16. It gives us a vivid sense of the great truth so often illustrated in human history, that whom God would destroy He first leaves to infatuation; or, in the terse phrase of the ancient heathen authors: "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." 17. "Made all the nations to drink," carries out the peculiar phraseology brought to view first in this prophet's original commission (chap. 1: 10): "See, I have this day set thee over the nations to root out, to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant." What the prophet is commissioned to announce, he is said to do; or, as here, to "make" the nations do. Of course this is a figurative conception, involving no literal cup of wine whatever. 18. For obvious reasons, Jerusalem and Judah come first. Their sins had been most provoking to God. Indeed, it might be said, perhaps, that their case determined (as to time and manner) this whole series of judgments on the nations of Western Asia, calling forth those schemes of Divine providence which then raised up the great Chaldean power, and made it a hammer to break those nations in pieces. The clause, "As it is this day," seems to have been written by the compiler of these prophecies, who added it after the first great instalment of fulfilling events. H. C.—It is most likely that this narrative was either written by the prophet himself, or dictated by him to Baruch, who wrote for him, after the destruction of Jerusalem, when a compilation was made of all his prophecies; this supposition will account for the words, "as it is this day," found at the close of the 18th verse. Blayney. 19. Pharaoh of Egypt legitimately comes next. For many centuries, even back to the age of the early Pharaohs, the kingdom that sat on the Nile had been the pitted antagonist of the kingdom that sat on the Euphrates. Between these two great powers of ancient times, wars were frequent; antipathies eternal. Each sought to draw into alliance with itself whatever other tribes and sovereignties lay intermediate or adjacent. Hence, Egypt had drawn into her alliance the powers named in these subsequent verses, especially verses 20-24, and consequently involved them in her own doom. The first decisive blow against the Egyptian power was struck in the great battle at Carchemish, to which Jeremiah refers (chap. 46: 2). From this she never rallied during the sway of this Chaldean dynasty. H. C. 19-26. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, comes next, because the Jews trusted to that broken reed (verse 19); the remains of them fled to Egypt, and then Jeremiah particularly foretold the dedestruction of that country (chap. 43: 10, 11). All the other nations that bordered upon Canaan must pledge Jerusalem in this bitter cup, this cup of trembling. The mingled people, the Arabians, so some; some rovers of divers nations that lived by rapine, so others; the kings of the land of Ez, joined to the country of the Edomites. The Philistines had been vexatious to Israel, but now their cities and their lords became a prey to this mighty conqueror. Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Zidon are places well known to border upon Israel; the isles beyond or beside the sea are supposed to be those parts of Phoenicia and Syria that lay upon the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Dedan and the other countries mentioned (verses 23, 24) seem to have lain upon the confines of Idumea and Arabia the desert. Those of Elam are the Persians, with whom the Medes are joined, now looked upon as inconsiderable, and yet afterward able to make reprisals upon Babylon for themselves and all their neighbors. The kings of the north, that lay nearer to Babylon, and others that lay at some distance, will be sure to be seized on and made a prey of by the victorious sword of Nebuchadnezzar. Nay, he shall push on his victories with such incredible fury and success, that all the kingdoms of the world that were then and there known should become sacrifices to his ambition. Upon this whole matter we may observe: 1. That there is a God that judges in the earth, to whom all the nations of the earth are accountable, and by whose judgment they must abide. 2. That God can easily bring to ruin the greatest nations, the most numerous and powerful, and such as have been most secure. 3. That those who have been vexatious and mischievous to the people of God will be reckoned with for it at last. Many of these nations had in their turns given disturbance to Israel, but now comes destruction on them. The year of the Redeemer will come, even the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. H. 27-29. None of these nations could be excused from this wine-cup and its doom. Since the Lord had begun with His own people as having sinned against greater light, yet recognizing them still as His own, He could not judge them and leave other idolatrous nations unpunished. See this law of the Divine administration (1 Pet. 4: 17, 18). 30-33. Calamities take a wide and fearful sweep. The nations of the earth are agitated with wars and conquests. A new power arises in the person of the Chaldean empire, and gains a world-wide ascendency, subjugating all other nations and tribes to its sway. This is fitly compared to the roaring of a lion and to his going forth to destroy; or to an earthquake which rocks the nations from end to end of the inhabited world. H. C. JEREMIAH, CHAPTER XXVI., IN VOL. VII., PAGE 399. JEREMIAH, CHAPTER XXVII., IN VOL. VII., PAGE 430. JEREMIAH, CHAPTER XXVIII., IN VOL. VII., PAGE 430. 26:1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, came this word from the LORD, saying, Thus saith the LORD: Stand in the court of the LORD's house, and speak unto all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the LORD's house, all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; keep not back a word. It may be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way; that I may repent me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings. And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD: If ye will not hearken to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you, to hearken to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I send unto you, even rising up early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened; then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth. And the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD. And it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold on him, saying, Thou shalt surely die. Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant? And all the people were gathered unto Jeremiah in the house of the LORD. 10 And when the princes of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king's house unto the house of the LORD; and they sat in the entry of the new gate of the LORD's house. Then spake the priests and the prophets unto the princes and to all the people, saying, This man is worthy of death; for he hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears. Then spake Jeremiah unto all the princes and to all the people, saying, The LORD sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that ye have heard. 13. Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; 14 and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you. But as for 15 me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as is good and right in your eyes. Only know ye for certain that, if ye put me to death, ye shall bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof: for of a truth the LORD hath sent me unto 16 you to speak all these words in your ears. Then said the princes and all the people unto the priests and to the prophets: This man is not worthy of death; for he hath spoken to us in 17 the name of the LORD our God. Then rose up certain of the elders of the land, and spake to 18 all the assembly of the people, saying, Micaiah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the 19 mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the LORD, and intreat the favour of the LORD, and the LORD repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? Thus should 20 we commit great evil against our own souls. And there was also a man that prophesied in the name of the LORD, Uriah the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-Jearim; and he prophesied 21 against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah: and when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death; but when Uriah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into 22 Egypt: and Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, namely, Elnathan the son of Achbor, 23 and certain men with him, into Egypt: and they fetched forth Uriah out of Egypt, and brought him unto Jehoiakim the king; who slew him with the sword, and cast his dead body 24 into the graves of the common people. But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death. 36:1 And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, 2 that this word came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even 3 unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their 4 iniquity and their sin. Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon 5 a roll of a book. And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am shut up; I cannot go into 6 the house of the LORD: therefore go thou, and read in the roll, which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of the LORD in the ears of the people in the LORD's house upon the fast day: and also thou shalt read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their cities. 7 It may be they will present their supplication before the LORD, and will return every one from his evil way: for great is the anger and the fury that the LORD hath pronounced 8 against this people. And Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading in the book the words of the LORD in the LORD's house. 9 Now it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, that all the people in Jerusalem, and all the people that came from the cities of 10 Judah unto Jerusalem, proclaimed a fast before the LORD. Then read Baruch in the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the LORD, in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate of the LORD's house, in 11 the ears of all the people. And when Micaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had 12 heard out of the book all the words of the LORD, he went down into the king's house, into the scribe's chamber: and, lo, all the princes sat there, even Elishama the scribe, and Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan the son of Achbor, and Gemariah the son of Shaphan, and 13 Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the princes. Then Micaiah declared unto them all the 14 words that he had heard, when Baruch read the book in the ears of the people. Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, unto Baruch, saying, Take in thine hand the roll wherein thou hast read in the ears of the people, 15 and come. So Baruch the son of Neriah took the roll in his hand, and came unto them. And they said unto him, Sit down now, and read it in our ears. So Baruch read it in their ears. 16 Now it came to pass, when they had heard all the words, they turned in fear one toward 17 another, and said unto Baruch, We will surely tell the king of all these words. And they asked Baruch, saying, Tell us now, How didst thou write all these words at his mouth? 18 Then Baruch answered them, He pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth, and I 19 wrote them with ink in the book. Then said the princes unto Baruch, Go, hide thee, thou 20 and Jeremiah; and let no man know where ye be. And they went in to the king into the court; but they had laid up the roll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe; and they told all 21 the words in the ears of the king. So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll: and he took it out of the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi read it in the ears of the king, and 22 in the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king. Now the king sat in the winter 23 house in the ninth month: and there was a fire in the brasier burning before him. And it came to pass, when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, that the king cut it with the pen- knife, and cast it into the fire that was in the brasier, until all the roll was consumed in the 24 fire that was in the brasier. And they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the 25 king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words. Moreover Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll; but he 26 would not hear them. And the king commanded Jerahmeel the king's son, and Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the LORD hid them. 27. Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, after that the king had burned the roll, and 28 the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king 29 of Judah hath burned. And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah thou shalt say, Thus saith the LORD: Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from 30 thence man and beast? Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in 31 the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jeru- salem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them, but 32 they hearkened not. Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words. 45: 1 The word that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the 2 son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto thee, O 3 Baruch: Thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the LORD hath added sorrow to my pain; I 4 am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest. Thus shalt thou say unto him, Thus saith the LORD: Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted 5 I will pluck up; and this in the whole land. And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest. In the early part of the reign of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah is directed to foretell the destruction of the Temple and city of Jerusalem, without a speedy repentance and reformation (verses 1-6). On this account he is apprehended and accused before the council of a capital offence; he enters on his defence, and is acquitted, his advocates urging the precedent of Micah in the reign of Hezekiah (verses 7-19). But from a contrary precedent it appears that his life would have been in great danger had he not met with a powerful protector. Blayney.—This chapter should be read in connection with chaps. 7-9. It is manifest that this chapter is only a renewed mention of the prophecy, drawn out there much more fully, and renewed here for the sake of recording the persecution against Jeremiah, of which that signal prophecy in the Temple was the occasion. H. C.—Read also the messages to the king and people in chap. 25. B. In the weakness and disorder which characterized this reign, the work of Jeremiah became daily more prominent. The king had come to the throne as the vassal of Egypt, and for a time the Egyptian party was dominant in Jerusalem. Others, however, held that the only way of safety lay in accepting the supremacy of the Chaldeans. Jeremiah appeared as the chief representative of this party. He had learned to discern the signs of the times; the evils of the nation were not to be cured by any half-measures of reform, or by foreign alliances. The king of Babylon was God's servant, doing His work, and was for a time to prevail over all resistance. Hard as it was for one who sympathized so deeply with all the sufferings of his country, this was the conviction to which he had to bring himself. He had to expose himself to the suspicion of treachery by declaring it. Men claiming to be prophets had their "word of Jehovah" to set against his (14 : 13 ; 23 : 7), and all that he could do was to commit his cause to God, and wait for the result. Some of the most striking scenes in this conflict are brought before us here with great vividness. If Jeremiah was not at once hunted to death, like Urijah (verse 23), it was because his friend Ahikam was powerful enough to protect him. Die. B. 7. The "prophets" here associated with the priests in opposition to Jeremiah were the false prophets—utterly bad men. 9. The verb rendered "took" means, they seized him violently; they made a forcible arrest. The main point of their indictment would be exciting sedition against the government. Very probably they gave it the form of constructive blasphemy, as spoken against the sacred Temple. If the prophet had been without defence and justification, the charge must have been grave and serious. 10. It is noticeable that Jeremiah's friends were among the princes, indicating that under the reign of Josiah he had powerful friends at court, stood high with that king, and that some, at least, of those friends still lived, and were in power to befriend him. 11. The priests and prophets now bring the case before these princes and before the people—the latter, as appears here, not being in the prosecution, but rather in the capacity of judges in the case. The priests and the prophets are his persecutors and accusers. There is no intimation thus far, in this chapter, of the part taken by Jehoiakim in this transaction. 12-15. Jeremiah's defence is straightforward, outspoken, fearless and every way appropriate to his circumstances. He pleads, "I have said only what the Lord bade me say, with a special and solemn injunction not to lessen a word of it." 18,19. This Micah was the same whose prophecies we have. The passage here referred to is Micah 3:12. This case shows clearly that the writings of the earlier prophets were now in the hands of the people. The example was every way in point. H. C. 20. Urijah who prophesied.** The process against Jeremiah is finished at the nineteenth verse, and the case of Urijah is next brought on, for he was also to be tried for his life; but, hearing of it, he fled to Egypt. He was, however, condemned in his absence; and the king sent to Egypt, and brought him thence and slew him, and caused him to have an ignominious burial (verses 21-23). 24. The hand of Ahikam was with Jeremiah.** And it was probably by his influence that Jeremiah did not share the same fate with Urijah. Ahikam mentioned here was father of Gedaliah, who, after the capture of Jerusalem, was appointed governor by Nebuchadnezzar. A. C.—Both he and his father Shaphan were chief ministers under Josiah (2 K. 22:12, 14). And the brothers of Ahikam, Gemariah, Elasah and Jaazaniah, were considerable men in those days with Ahikam, and members of the great council (chap. 29:3; Ezek. 8:11). So Ahikam made use of his interest with them to deliver Jeremiah from the danger that threatened him. W. Lowth. Summaries of Zedekiah's Reign, Explanatory of these Chapters from Jeremiah. ZEDEKIAH, the last king of Judah, was a weak prince, who lived in dependence upon the upstarts who had now seized upon power. He had sworn fealty to Nebuchadnezzar (2 Chron. 36: 13), and had testified his submission to him, both by an embassy in the beginning of his reign (Jer. 29: 3) and a personal visit to Babylon lon in the fourth year (51: 59). It was then that Jeremiah wrote his prophecy of the future destruction of Babylon (chaps. 50, 51), when, as is therein declared, the hammer of the world should be broken in pieces by a mightier, and delivered it to the royal courier to read it in Babylon, and then to cast the roll, after binding a stone to it, into the river Euphrates. But the king's party was meditating a revolt from Babylon, and a consultation with the ambassadors of certain neighboring States took place at Jerusalem at this very time (Jer. 27:3). In vain did Jeremiah warn them, by repeatedly declaring the Divine appointment of Nebuchadnezzar to be the instrument of judgment to Judah and the surrounding nations. The lying prophets, who both in Jerusalem and among the Jews already in captivity predicted the speedily approaching end of the Babylonian servitude, found more willing listeners (Jer. 27-29). In the ninth year of his reign, Zedekiah at last openly broke his oath, and concluded an alliance with the Egyptian king, Hophra (elsewhere called Apries). Then Ezekiel uttered from his captivity his threatening words concerning Jerusalem, chaps. 17 and 21 belonging to this period. Before the Egyptian monarch had yet completed his preparations, Nebuchadnezzar appeared with an army in Palestine (Jer. 34:1-7); the country towns were destroyed, the fortresses surrounded, and Jerusalem prepared for an obstinate resistance. Jeremiah counselled the surrender of the city. But when the Chaldean army marched against the now advancing Hophra, the newly awakened arrogance of the ruling party no longer heeded any warning. Jeremiah was cast into prison, but secretly released by the king, and kept in the court of the prison (chap. 37). When, on the return of the Chaldean army, he renewed his threatening announcements, he was cast by the princes into a dungeon, that he might there perish with hunger. Being again delivered by the king, he in vain entreated him to surrender to the Chaldees (chap. 38). While, however, notwithstanding the heroic defence of the city, its danger was daily increasing, and famine was raging terribly among the besieged (cf. Lam. 2:20; 4:9 sqq.), the voice of the prophet was lifted up in the midst of the misery that surrounded him, to proclaim with exulting confidence the glorious future awaiting the chosen people and the city of God, and to prophesy, while the ancient form of the theocracy was being destroyed and the throne of David trampled under foot, concerning the new covenant and the righteous branch of David (Jer. 30-33). After a siege of eighteen months, a breach was made in the fortifications. Zedekiah with a portion of his forces endeavored to escape, but was brought back to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, and, after his sons had been executed before his eyes, was deprived of his sight and taken in chains to Babylon (39:1-7; 2 K. 25:1-7; cf. also Ezek. 12:13). Oehler. Jeremiah's great prophecy against Babylon, for the consolation of the exiles, was rendered the more impressive by the sign which followed it. Seraiah, the son of Neriah, who carried this prophecy to Babylon, was directed, after reading it, to tie a stone to the volume and to sink it in the Euphrates, saying, "Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her" (50, 51). The occasion found for executing this commission was a visit which Zedekiah paid to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign (n.c. 594-93), probably to pay his tribute to Nebuchadnezzar, or perhaps to defend himself against the first suspicions of treasonable dealings with Egypt. For in the same year Pharaoh-Necho, who seems never to have ventured to meet Nebuchadnezzar after the defeat of Carchemish, was succeeded by his son Psammetichus II. (the Psammis of Herodotus). From the Book of Ezekiel, who began in this year to enforce upon the exiles at Babylon the same lessons that Jeremiah was teaching at Jerusalem, we learn that Zedekiah entered into a treasonable correspondence with the new king of Egypt, which the prophet denounces as a gross violation of his plighted faith, destined to end in the king's being brought to Babylon for punishment, while his people should fall by the sword or be scattered to the winds (Ezek. 17:11-21). The terms of the agreement with Egypt are expressly stated by the prophet: "He rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people;" and we are forbidden to give Zedekiah credit for a patriotic resistance by the declaration of the historian: "He rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning unto Jehovah, God of Israel" (2 Chron. 36:13). At Jerusalem the plot appeared so far ripe that the false prophet Hananiah promised the return of Jehoiachin within two years, and publicly broke off the neck of Jeremiah the yoke which he wore, as a sign of the hopeless subjection of Judah and the surrounding nations, who seem to have joined the Egyptian league. Jeremiah replied that the yoke of wood (the present vassalage of Babylon) should be replaced by a yoke of iron (the final destruction of the nation), and predicted the death of Hananiah, which happened within the year (Jer. 27, 28). We find further evidence of the progress of the conspiracy in the Book of Ezekiel. His vision of the Temple at Jerusalem, in the fifth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of the Captivity (n.c. 594-93), reveals the idol abominations which would soon be punished by the destruction of all but a small chosen remnant, and other visions and types follow to the like effect (chaps. 8-12). The plainer language of Ezekiel, about a year later (on the tenth of the fifth month of the seventh year of Zedekiah), when the elders of Judah came to him to inquire of Jehovah concerning the state of Jerusalem, serves to show that the rebellion had broken out (chaps. 20, 22, 23). The utter corruption of the people at this time, their persecution of God's prophets and rejection of His word, so that His wrath came upon them "till there was no remedy;" the wickedness of Zedekiah in not humbling himself before the word of God by Jeremiah; his faithlessness to the oath he had sworn to Nebuchadnezzar, and that not from religious patriotism, for "he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning unto Jehovah God of Israel;" and the result in the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the people till the time of the Persian Empire, so that the land kept her Sabbaths for seventy years, as Jeremiah had foretold—these outlines of the catastrophe are drawn by the writer of the Chronicles (36: 11-21). It was still two years before Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, with the resolution to destroy it utterly for Zedekiah's treason. From this point the dates of Ezekiel's prophecies accompany the events at Jerusalem. The city was invested in the ninth year of Zedekiah, on the tenth day of the tenth month; and on the same day Ezekiel was commissioned to foretell its utter destruction, by striking images, to the exiles at Babylon (chap. 24). The forces marshalled against Jerusalem comprised Nebuchadnezzar's whole army, all the vassal kings of his empire, and all the nations around, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites and others, who came up to avenge the quarrels of a thousand years. All the fortified cities of Judah had already been taken except Lachish and Azekah (Jer. 34: 1, 7). In this extremity Zedekiah proclaimed freedom to all Hebrew slaves, and sent Zephaniah the priest, with another messenger, to entreat the prayers of Jeremiah. In reply, he announced the coming destruction of the city and the fate of the king himself. The king now attempted to silence him by a mild confinement in the court of the prison in the palace, where he had the society of Baruch. While thus shut up, and that in a city environed by a mighty enemy, Jeremiah purchased, as the "Goël," a field at his native village of Anathoth in Benjamin, as a sign of that return which he went on to prophesy, together with the glories of Messiah's kingdom. This act of faith has been compared to that of the Roman who bought, at its full value, the ground on which Hannibal was encamped. And now there broke forth a deceptive ray of hope. Pharaoh-Hophra, who had just succeeded to the throne of Egypt, led the forces which his father had collected to the relief of Zedekiah. His capture of Gaza (Jer. 47: 1-7) caused Nebuchadnezzar to suspend the siege of Jerusalem, and to march against him. And now Jerusalem exulted with the joy of a city delivered from a hopeless siege. But Jeremiah forbade them to deceive themselves, while, on the distant banks of the Euphrates, Ezekiel also foretold the ruin of Egypt (Jer. 37: 6-10). The princes of Judah now broke their solemn covenant to release their Hebrew slaves; and Jeremiah, having denounced their conduct, left the city for his home in Benjamin. He was detained by one of his enemies, who happened to be captain of the gate. The princes accused him of deserting to the Chaldeans, a course which had now become common; and he was imprisoned in the house of Jonathan the scribe, where he remained for some time (chaps. 34: 11-22; 37: 11-15). Meanwhile his warnings were fulfilled by the return of the army of Nebuchadnezzar, who, according to Josephus, had defeated the Egyptians; though more probably the enemy retired without a battle. Zedekiah now sent secretly for Jeremiah, and asked him, "Is there any word from Jehovah?" "There is," replied the prophet; "thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon." Hoping, it would seem, for a more favorable answer, the king sent him back to the court of the prison, and ordered him to be fed while any bread was left in the city. In reply to another request which the king sent to him by Pashur and Zephaniah to inquire of Jehovah, the prophet pointed out a surrender as the only hope of safety (chap. 21). Upon this the princes demanded his death as a traitor, and the king confessed himself too weak to withstand them. They threw Jeremiah to perish in a hideous pit of the prison, where he sank into the mire; but the better feelings of the king came to his rescue at the intercession of the Ethiopian eunuch Ebed-melech, to whom he promised his life "for a prey" in the destruction of the city. Once more adjured by Zedekiah, in private, to give him counsel from God, the prophet pressed him to surrender; but the king was afraid of falling into the hands of the Jews who had revolted to Nebuchadnezzar, and who had doubtless many a wrong to avenge. So he entreated Jeremiah to keep the interview a secret, and sent him back to the court of the prison, where he remained till Jerusalem was taken (37:14-28). That catastrophe was now at hand; the ruin foreseen by Moses from the very birth of the nation, foretold by the prophets, and postponed for the sake of pious kings, as often as it was provoked by their degenerate successors; held in suspense in remembrance of God's oath to David, but brought down at last by the shameless, persistent, inveterate violation of His covenant of piety and purity by the chosen people. Jehovah had done all He could by His prophets, whose words they despised and misused their persons, "until the wrath of Jehovah arose against His people till there was no remedy." P. S. # The Yokes and Hananiah. 27:1 In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, came this word unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus saith the LORD to me: Make thee bands and bars, and put them upon thy neck; and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah; and give them a charge unto their masters, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Thus shall ye say unto your masters; I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the face of the earth, by my great power and by my outstretched arm; and I give it unto whom it seemeth right unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field also have I given him to serve him. And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his own land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. And it shall come to pass, that the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. But as for you, hearken ye not to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreams, nor to your soothsayers, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out and ye should perish. But the nation that shall bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, that nation will I let remain in their own land, saith the LORD; and they shall till it, and dwell therein. And I spake to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD hath spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? And hearken not unto the words of the prophets that speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon; for they prophesy a lie unto you. For I have not sent them, saith the LORD, but they prophesy falsely in my name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you. Also I spake to the priests and to all this people, saying, Thus saith the LORD: Hearken not to the words of your prophets that prophesy unto you, saying, Behold, the vessels of the LORD's house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you. Hearken not unto them; serve the king of Babylon, and live: wherefore should this city become a desolation? But if they be prophets, and if the word of the LORD be with them, let them now make intercession to the LORD of hosts, that the vessels which are left in the house of the LORD, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, go not to Babylon. For thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that are left in this city, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took not, when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem; yea, thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that are left in the house of the LORD, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem: They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be, until the day that I visit them, saith the LORD; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place. 28:1 And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azzur the prophet, which was of Gibeon, spake unto me in the house of the LORD, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the LORD's house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon: and I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went to Babylon, saith the LORD: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. Then the prophet Jeremiah said unto the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people that stood in the house of the LORD, even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen: the LORD do so: the LORD perform thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the LORD's house, and all them of the captivity, from Babylon unto this place. Nevertheless hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people: The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence. The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the LORD hath truly sent him. Then Hananiah the prophet took the bar from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and brake it. And Hananiah spake in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus saith the LORD: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon within two full years from off the neck of all the nations. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way. Then the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, after that Hananiah the prophet had broken the bar from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Go, and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD: Thou hast broken the bars of wood; but thou shalt make in their stead bars of iron. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him: and I have given him the beasts of the field also. Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah; the LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will send thee away from off the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast spoken rebellion against the LORD. So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month. 27: 1. In the first verse, which purports to give the date of this prophecy, there is manifestly an error of some ancient transcriber in writing Jehoiakim for Zedekiah. That this is an error is manifest, for verse 3 assumes that Zedekiah is now king; verse 12 shows that the prophet bore this message personally to Zedekiah; verse 20 proves that the captivity of Jeconiah, son and successor of Jehoiakim, is past; and finally chap. 28: 1 states that the same year was in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah. It is then a simple matter of fact that the ancient transcribers of the sacred text were liable to mistakes, and did sometimes make them. That form of inspiration which preserved the original authors of the Scriptures from any vital error in doctrine did not reach all the transcribers to preserve them from all mistake in their transcripts. Compared with any other ancient document, the Scriptures are remarkably free from this sort of error. Where errors have occurred, the means of correction are generally, as here, at command. This chapter then dates in the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah. H. C. The prophecies contained both in this and the following chapter belong to the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign. About this time ambassadors came to Zedekiah from the kings of Edom, Moab and other neighboring nations, to solicit him to join with them in a confederacy against the king of Babylon. On this occasion Jeremiah is ordered to put bands and yokes about his neck, and to send them afterward to the before-mentioned kings, declaring the sovereignty of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors to be of Divine appointment, and promising peace and protection to those who submitted quietly, but menacing evil in case of resistance (verses 1-11). A like admonition is delivered to Zedekiah, advising him not to expose himself and his people to certain ruin, by listening to the suggestions of false prophets, and revolting from the service of the king of Babylon (verses 12-15). The priests and all the people are also warned not to give credit to the false prophets, who taught them to expect a speedy restoration of the vessels, which had been carried away to Babylon together with Jeconiah. Instead of which it is foretold that the remaining vessels in the house of God, and in the king's house at Jerusalem, should be carried after the other, and should not be brought back till the appointed time of Judah's captivity was at an end (verse 16 to the end). Blayney. 2. Make thee bonds and yokes.** The prophets foreshowed things by actions as well as by words. So Isaiah went "naked and barefoot" (Isa. 20: 3). Ezekiel prophesied in like manner by signs (4: 1, etc.). W. Lowth. 2,3. Can there be any question whether these bonds and yokes were merely seen in vision, or were actually made? How could yokes be sent in vision by the hand of ambassadors to the kings of Edom and Moab? How could those kings know anything about the prophet's vision? Were the consequent transactions of the next chapter, where Hananiah takes off the yoke from Jeremiah's neck and breaks it, also done in vision? And did his death, in judgment therefor, occur in vision only? Manifestly those events of prophetic life which were interwoven with the outward life of other men must have been transacted in the external world. And we shall not be misled if we follow the simple rule that things done in vision are said to be shown and seen only, while things done in the outward world and in actual life are plainly stated to be done, as here: "Make thee bonds and yokes." The Bible is eminently a plain book, written for the common mind, and to be interpreted accordingly. 9-11. In those nations the word of the Lord might be gainsayed by their false prophets in the form of diviners, dreamers, soothsayers, etc., as was done by false prophets in Judah. The Lord warns them to put no confidence in those gainsayers and liars. Men claiming supernatural powers are an institution in all heathen nations, and, so far as history enables us to judge, have always been so in all ages and in every clime. If it be not precisely a demand and outgrowth of human nature, it is a law of human depravity and a perpetual adjunct of a sinning race so long as they are led captive by Satan at his will. 12,13. Here the message comes to the king and people of Judah, Why should they fall under the general doom denounced on the nations that would not serve the king of Babylon? H. C.—"Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. Why will ye die—thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?" This was the purport of the message which Jeremiah delivered before King Zedekiah and his court, and of which, when once delivered, his continuing to wear the yoke in public was a standing memorial, continually reminding those who saw it of the declaration which it symbolized and embodied. He even appeared with it in the Temple, to the inner courts of which he as a priest had access. Kitto. 16,17. A portion of the sacred vessels of the Temple had been taken away to Babylon with Jehoiachin. The false prophets were assuring the people that these vessels would soon be brought back. The Lord warns them against putting any confidence in such declarations, "Serve the king of Babylon and live" means, "And so ye shall live"—the second verb being a promise. 18. The people might have a test of the reliability of these prophets, and one that could be applied very soon. Bid them intercede with God to prevent the vessels of the Temple and palace yet remaining from being taken to Babylon. If they had power with God, let them improve and show it in this point. The question must soon come to issue, for the final destruction of the city, Temple and palace was at hand. 19-22. All that had not been taken away with the young king, Jehoiachin, when after a three months' reign he was borne captive to Babylon, would soon be taken away—viz., at the close of the then present reign of Zedekiah. Yet, for the comfort of those who waited humbly on the Lord, He assured them that those vessels would be brought back again and restored to their place—a sacred pledge of the restoration of a remnant of the people and of the re-establishment of Divine worship in its ancient home. Chap. 28. The chapter is especially valuable for its minute description of the case of Hananiah, one of the false prophets, who labored zealously to counteract the influence of the true prophets of the Lord. This case may stand as a sample of the class, an illustration of the methods pursued by those mischievous and wicked men. 1. What is said to have occurred in the "beginning of the reign of Zedekiah" is more definitely set to his fourth year and fifth month. The Jews used the phrases, "the beginning" and the "latter end," to denote in a general way the early part and the latter part. In this case, since Zedekiah reigned eleven years, events in his fourth year would be in the former, the early part, or "the beginning." This transaction was public, in the presence of the priests, and of all the people in the Temple. 2-4. Thus did this false prophet labor directly to gainsay and deny what Jeremiah had been saying. Observe, he does not shrink from using the solemn and prophetic forms of announcement: "Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel," and this in the very face of the stern prohibition of God Himself. His special points are, that God says He has broken the yoke of the king of Babylon; that within two full years He will restore all the sacred vessels taken from the Temple to Babylon with Jeconiah, and will bring back Jeconiah himself. This indicates a degree of boldness and daring in falsehood which can scarcely be accounted for without supposing the presence and inspiration of the "father of lies." 5,6. This first reply of Jeremiah is not to be considered as prophecy or as a message from the Lord. He does not prefix to it the formula of a Divine message, "Thus saith the Lord." He means only this: I shall be as well pleased as yourself to see all the sacred vessels of the Temple restored and all the captives brought back. 7-9. This part of Jeremiah's reply mildly suggests that there have been prophets in former ages, and that the test of their Divine mission has always been the fulfilment of their predictions. 10,11. Determined to be behind the true prophets in none of the methods used by them to deepen the impression of their words, Hananiah takes the yoke from Jeremiah's neck and breaks it. This symbolic act should naturally indicate that the Lord had reversed His purpose, and would break the power of Babylon within two years. Consequently until that time this test of fulfilment could not be applied to prove him a false prophet. Jeremiah here withdraws, having no further special message from the Lord to deliver. As the case stands, there is nothing more for him to do. Two years elapsed will show Hananiah to be a lying prophet—if the Lord shall see fit to wait so long. Jeremiah had nothing to do but wait for that time, or at least for some further commission from the Lord. 15–17. The daring hardihood and blasphemy of Hananiah called for signal retribution. Hence another solemn message from the Lord, first forewarning, then smiting. The warning was given in the fifth month (verse 1). The fatal blow fell in the seventh, with only two months' delay, giving him time for reflection and repentance, as the usage of human courts fixes a future day for execution, to give the culprit time for thought and for preparation to die. H. C.—So Hananiah the prophet died the same year, in the seventh month. This simple record of the result has always seemed to us unequalled in that simplicity which rises to grandeur. Here is no carefulness of minute statement as to exact fulfilment; no call to admiration at the effect of the Lord's judgment. "So Hananiah died;" that is all. There is a world of meaning in that "so"—indicating that it was simply the most natural and inevitable thing in the world that Hananiah should die—nothing at all to marvel at that he did die—when his doom had been thus denounced. Kitto. Summaries of Zedekiah's Reign, Explanatory of these Chapters from Jeremiah. ZEDEKIAH, the last king of Judah, was a weak prince, who lived in dependence upon the upstarts who had now seized upon power. He had sworn fealty to Nebuchadnezzar (2 Chron. 36: 13), and had testified his submission to him, both by an embassy in the beginning of his reign (Jer. 29: 3) and a personal visit to Babylon lon in the fourth year (51: 59). It was then that Jeremiah wrote his prophecy of the future destruction of Babylon (chaps. 50, 51), when, as is therein declared, the hammer of the world should be broken in pieces by a mightier, and delivered it to the royal courier to read it in Babylon, and then to cast the roll, after binding a stone to it, into the river Euphrates. But the king's party was meditating a revolt from Babylon, and a consultation with the ambassadors of certain neighboring States took place at Jerusalem at this very time (Jer. 27:3). In vain did Jeremiah warn them, by repeatedly declaring the Divine appointment of Nebuchadnezzar to be the instrument of judgment to Judah and the surrounding nations. The lying prophets, who both in Jerusalem and among the Jews already in captivity predicted the speedily approaching end of the Babylonian servitude, found more willing listeners (Jer. 27-29). In the ninth year of his reign, Zedekiah at last openly broke his oath, and concluded an alliance with the Egyptian king, Hophra (elsewhere called Apries). Then Ezekiel uttered from his captivity his threatening words concerning Jerusalem, chaps. 17 and 21 belonging to this period. Before the Egyptian monarch had yet completed his preparations, Nebuchadnezzar appeared with an army in Palestine (Jer. 34:1-7); the country towns were destroyed, the fortresses surrounded, and Jerusalem prepared for an obstinate resistance. Jeremiah counselled the surrender of the city. But when the Chaldean army marched against the now advancing Hophra, the newly awakened arrogance of the ruling party no longer heeded any warning. Jeremiah was cast into prison, but secretly released by the king, and kept in the court of the prison (chap. 37). When, on the return of the Chaldean army, he renewed his threatening announcements, he was cast by the princes into a dungeon, that he might there perish with hunger. Being again delivered by the king, he in vain entreated him to surrender to the Chaldees (chap. 38). While, however, notwithstanding the heroic defence of the city, its danger was daily increasing, and famine was raging terribly among the besieged (cf. Lam. 2:20; 4:9 sqq.), the voice of the prophet was lifted up in the midst of the misery that surrounded him, to proclaim with exulting confidence the glorious future awaiting the chosen people and the city of God, and to prophesy, while the ancient form of the theocracy was being destroyed and the throne of David trampled under foot, concerning the new covenant and the righteous branch of David (Jer. 30-33). After a siege of eighteen months, a breach was made in the fortifications. Zedekiah with a portion of his forces endeavored to escape, but was brought back to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, and, after his sons had been executed before his eyes, was deprived of his sight and taken in chains to Babylon (39:1-7; 2 K. 25:1-7; cf. also Ezek. 12:13). Oehler. Jeremiah's great prophecy against Babylon, for the consolation of the exiles, was rendered the more impressive by the sign which followed it. Seraiah, the son of Neriah, who carried this prophecy to Babylon, was directed, after reading it, to tie a stone to the volume and to sink it in the Euphrates, saying, "Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her" (50, 51). The occasion found for executing this commission was a visit which Zedekiah paid to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign (n.c. 594-93), probably to pay his tribute to Nebuchadnezzar, or perhaps to defend himself against the first suspicions of treasonable dealings with Egypt. For in the same year Pharaoh-Necho, who seems never to have ventured to meet Nebuchadnezzar after the defeat of Carchemish, was succeeded by his son Psammetichus II. (the Psammis of Herodotus). From the Book of Ezekiel, who began in this year to enforce upon the exiles at Babylon the same lessons that Jeremiah was teaching at Jerusalem, we learn that Zedekiah entered into a treasonable correspondence with the new king of Egypt, which the prophet denounces as a gross violation of his plighted faith, destined to end in the king's being brought to Babylon for punishment, while his people should fall by the sword or be scattered to the winds (Ezek. 17:11-21). The terms of the agreement with Egypt are expressly stated by the prophet: "He rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people;" and we are forbidden to give Zedekiah credit for a patriotic resistance by the declaration of the historian: "He rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning unto Jehovah, God of Israel" (2 Chron. 36:13). At Jerusalem the plot appeared so far ripe that the false prophet Hananiah promised the return of Jehoiachin within two years, and publicly broke off the neck of Jeremiah the yoke which he wore, as a sign of the hopeless subjection of Judah and the surrounding nations, who seem to have joined the Egyptian league. Jeremiah replied that the yoke of wood (the present vassalage of Babylon) should be replaced by a yoke of iron (the final destruction of the nation), and predicted the death of Hananiah, which happened within the year (Jer. 27, 28). We find further evidence of the progress of the conspiracy in the Book of Ezekiel. His vision of the Temple at Jerusalem, in the fifth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of the Captivity (n.c. 594-93), reveals the idol abominations which would soon be punished by the destruction of all but a small chosen remnant, and other visions and types follow to the like effect (chaps. 8-12). The plainer language of Ezekiel, about a year later (on the tenth of the fifth month of the seventh year of Zedekiah), when the elders of Judah came to him to inquire of Jehovah concerning the state of Jerusalem, serves to show that the rebellion had broken out (chaps. 20, 22, 23). The utter corruption of the people at this time, their persecution of God's prophets and rejection of His word, so that His wrath came upon them "till there was no remedy;" the wickedness of Zedekiah in not humbling himself before the word of God by Jeremiah; his faithlessness to the oath he had sworn to Nebuchadnezzar, and that not from religious patriotism, for "he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning unto Jehovah God of Israel;" and the result in the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the people till the time of the Persian Empire, so that the land kept her Sabbaths for seventy years, as Jeremiah had foretold—these outlines of the catastrophe are drawn by the writer of the Chronicles (36: 11-21). It was still two years before Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, with the resolution to destroy it utterly for Zedekiah's treason. From this point the dates of Ezekiel's prophecies accompany the events at Jerusalem. The city was invested in the ninth year of Zedekiah, on the tenth day of the tenth month; and on the same day Ezekiel was commissioned to foretell its utter destruction, by striking images, to the exiles at Babylon (chap. 24). The forces marshalled against Jerusalem comprised Nebuchadnezzar's whole army, all the vassal kings of his empire, and all the nations around, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites and others, who came up to avenge the quarrels of a thousand years. All the fortified cities of Judah had already been taken except Lachish and Azekah (Jer. 34: 1, 7). In this extremity Zedekiah proclaimed freedom to all Hebrew slaves, and sent Zephaniah the priest, with another messenger, to entreat the prayers of Jeremiah. In reply, he announced the coming destruction of the city and the fate of the king himself. The king now attempted to silence him by a mild confinement in the court of the prison in the palace, where he had the society of Baruch. While thus shut up, and that in a city environed by a mighty enemy, Jeremiah purchased, as the "Goël," a field at his native village of Anathoth in Benjamin, as a sign of that return which he went on to prophesy, together with the glories of Messiah's kingdom. This act of faith has been compared to that of the Roman who bought, at its full value, the ground on which Hannibal was encamped. And now there broke forth a deceptive ray of hope. Pharaoh-Hophra, who had just succeeded to the throne of Egypt, led the forces which his father had collected to the relief of Zedekiah. His capture of Gaza (Jer. 47: 1-7) caused Nebuchadnezzar to suspend the siege of Jerusalem, and to march against him. And now Jerusalem exulted with the joy of a city delivered from a hopeless siege. But Jeremiah forbade them to deceive themselves, while, on the distant banks of the Euphrates, Ezekiel also foretold the ruin of Egypt (Jer. 37: 6-10). The princes of Judah now broke their solemn covenant to release their Hebrew slaves; and Jeremiah, having denounced their conduct, left the city for his home in Benjamin. He was detained by one of his enemies, who happened to be captain of the gate. The princes accused him of deserting to the Chaldeans, a course which had now become common; and he was imprisoned in the house of Jonathan the scribe, where he remained for some time (chaps. 34: 11-22; 37: 11-15). Meanwhile his warnings were fulfilled by the return of the army of Nebuchadnezzar, who, according to Josephus, had defeated the Egyptians; though more probably the enemy retired without a battle. Zedekiah now sent secretly for Jeremiah, and asked him, "Is there any word from Jehovah?" "There is," replied the prophet; "thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon." Hoping, it would seem, for a more favorable answer, the king sent him back to the court of the prison, and ordered him to be fed while any bread was left in the city. In reply to another request which the king sent to him by Pashur and Zephaniah to inquire of Jehovah, the prophet pointed out a surrender as the only hope of safety (chap. 21). Upon this the princes demanded his death as a traitor, and the king confessed himself too weak to withstand them. They threw Jeremiah to perish in a hideous pit of the prison, where he sank into the mire; but the better feelings of the king came to his rescue at the intercession of the Ethiopian eunuch Ebed-melech, to whom he promised his life "for a prey" in the destruction of the city. Once more adjured by Zedekiah, in private, to give him counsel from God, the prophet pressed him to surrender; but the king was afraid of falling into the hands of the Jews who had revolted to Nebuchadnezzar, and who had doubtless many a wrong to avenge. So he entreated Jeremiah to keep the interview a secret, and sent him back to the court of the prison, where he remained till Jerusalem was taken (37:14-28). That catastrophe was now at hand; the ruin foreseen by Moses from the very birth of the nation, foretold by the prophets, and postponed for the sake of pious kings, as often as it was provoked by their degenerate successors; held in suspense in remembrance of God's oath to David, but brought down at last by the shameless, persistent, inveterate violation of His covenant of piety and purity by the chosen people. Jehovah had done all He could by His prophets, whose words they despised and misused their persons, "until the wrath of Jehovah arose against His people till there was no remedy." P. S. # The Yokes and Hananiah. 27:1 In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, came this word unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus saith the LORD to me: Make thee bands and bars, and put them upon thy neck; and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah; and give them a charge unto their masters, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Thus shall ye say unto your masters; I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the face of the earth, by my great power and by my outstretched arm; and I give it unto whom it seemeth right unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field also have I given him to serve him. And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his own land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. And it shall come to pass, that the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. But as for you, hearken ye not to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreams, nor to your soothsayers, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out and ye should perish. But the nation that shall bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, that nation will I let remain in their own land, saith the LORD; and they shall till it, and dwell therein. And I spake to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD hath spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? And hearken not unto the words of the prophets that speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon; for they prophesy a lie unto you. For I have not sent them, saith the LORD, but they prophesy falsely in my name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you. Also I spake to the priests and to all this people, saying, Thus saith the LORD: Hearken not to the words of your prophets that prophesy unto you, saying, Behold, the vessels of the LORD's house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you. Hearken not unto them; serve the king of Babylon, and live: wherefore should this city become a desolation? But if they be prophets, and if the word of the LORD be with them, let them now make intercession to the LORD of hosts, that the vessels which are left in the house of the LORD, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, go not to Babylon. For thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that are left in this city, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took not, when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem; yea, thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that are left in the house of the LORD, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem: They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be, until the day that I visit them, saith the LORD; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place. 28:1 And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azzur the prophet, which was of Gibeon, spake unto me in the house of the LORD, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the LORD's house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon: and I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went to Babylon, saith the LORD: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. Then the prophet Jeremiah said unto the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people that stood in the house of the LORD, even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen: the LORD do so: the LORD perform thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the LORD's house, and all them of the captivity, from Babylon unto this place. Nevertheless hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people: The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence. The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the LORD hath truly sent him. Then Hananiah the prophet took the bar from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and brake it. And Hananiah spake in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus saith the LORD: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon within two full years from off the neck of all the nations. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way. Then the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, after that Hananiah the prophet had broken the bar from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Go, and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD: Thou hast broken the bars of wood; but thou shalt make in their stead bars of iron. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him: and I have given him the beasts of the field also. Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah; the LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will send thee away from off the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast spoken rebellion against the LORD. So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month. 27: 1. In the first verse, which purports to give the date of this prophecy, there is manifestly an error of some ancient transcriber in writing Jehoiakim for Zedekiah. That this is an error is manifest, for verse 3 assumes that Zedekiah is now king; verse 12 shows that the prophet bore this message personally to Zedekiah; verse 20 proves that the captivity of Jeconiah, son and successor of Jehoiakim, is past; and finally chap. 28: 1 states that the same year was in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah. It is then a simple matter of fact that the ancient transcribers of the sacred text were liable to mistakes, and did sometimes make them. That form of inspiration which preserved the original authors of the Scriptures from any vital error in doctrine did not reach all the transcribers to preserve them from all mistake in their transcripts. Compared with any other ancient document, the Scriptures are remarkably free from this sort of error. Where errors have occurred, the means of correction are generally, as here, at command. This chapter then dates in the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah. H. C. The prophecies contained both in this and the following chapter belong to the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign. About this time ambassadors came to Zedekiah from the kings of Edom, Moab and other neighboring nations, to solicit him to join with them in a confederacy against the king of Babylon. On this occasion Jeremiah is ordered to put bands and yokes about his neck, and to send them afterward to the before-mentioned kings, declaring the sovereignty of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors to be of Divine appointment, and promising peace and protection to those who submitted quietly, but menacing evil in case of resistance (verses 1-11). A like admonition is delivered to Zedekiah, advising him not to expose himself and his people to certain ruin, by listening to the suggestions of false prophets, and revolting from the service of the king of Babylon (verses 12-15). The priests and all the people are also warned not to give credit to the false prophets, who taught them to expect a speedy restoration of the vessels, which had been carried away to Babylon together with Jeconiah. Instead of which it is foretold that the remaining vessels in the house of God, and in the king's house at Jerusalem, should be carried after the other, and should not be brought back till the appointed time of Judah's captivity was at an end (verse 16 to the end). Blayney. 2. Make thee bonds and yokes.** The prophets foreshowed things by actions as well as by words. So Isaiah went "naked and barefoot" (Isa. 20: 3). Ezekiel prophesied in like manner by signs (4: 1, etc.). W. Lowth. 2,3. Can there be any question whether these bonds and yokes were merely seen in vision, or were actually made? How could yokes be sent in vision by the hand of ambassadors to the kings of Edom and Moab? How could those kings know anything about the prophet's vision? Were the consequent transactions of the next chapter, where Hananiah takes off the yoke from Jeremiah's neck and breaks it, also done in vision? And did his death, in judgment therefor, occur in vision only? Manifestly those events of prophetic life which were interwoven with the outward life of other men must have been transacted in the external world. And we shall not be misled if we follow the simple rule that things done in vision are said to be shown and seen only, while things done in the outward world and in actual life are plainly stated to be done, as here: "Make thee bonds and yokes." The Bible is eminently a plain book, written for the common mind, and to be interpreted accordingly. 9-11. In those nations the word of the Lord might be gainsayed by their false prophets in the form of diviners, dreamers, soothsayers, etc., as was done by false prophets in Judah. The Lord warns them to put no confidence in those gainsayers and liars. Men claiming supernatural powers are an institution in all heathen nations, and, so far as history enables us to judge, have always been so in all ages and in every clime. If it be not precisely a demand and outgrowth of human nature, it is a law of human depravity and a perpetual adjunct of a sinning race so long as they are led captive by Satan at his will. 12,13. Here the message comes to the king and people of Judah, Why should they fall under the general doom denounced on the nations that would not serve the king of Babylon? H. C.—"Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. Why will ye die—thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?" This was the purport of the message which Jeremiah delivered before King Zedekiah and his court, and of which, when once delivered, his continuing to wear the yoke in public was a standing memorial, continually reminding those who saw it of the declaration which it symbolized and embodied. He even appeared with it in the Temple, to the inner courts of which he as a priest had access. Kitto. 16,17. A portion of the sacred vessels of the Temple had been taken away to Babylon with Jehoiachin. The false prophets were assuring the people that these vessels would soon be brought back. The Lord warns them against putting any confidence in such declarations, "Serve the king of Babylon and live" means, "And so ye shall live"—the second verb being a promise. 18. The people might have a test of the reliability of these prophets, and one that could be applied very soon. Bid them intercede with God to prevent the vessels of the Temple and palace yet remaining from being taken to Babylon. If they had power with God, let them improve and show it in this point. The question must soon come to issue, for the final destruction of the city, Temple and palace was at hand. 19-22. All that had not been taken away with the young king, Jehoiachin, when after a three months' reign he was borne captive to Babylon, would soon be taken away—viz., at the close of the then present reign of Zedekiah. Yet, for the comfort of those who waited humbly on the Lord, He assured them that those vessels would be brought back again and restored to their place—a sacred pledge of the restoration of a remnant of the people and of the re-establishment of Divine worship in its ancient home. Chap. 28. The chapter is especially valuable for its minute description of the case of Hananiah, one of the false prophets, who labored zealously to counteract the influence of the true prophets of the Lord. This case may stand as a sample of the class, an illustration of the methods pursued by those mischievous and wicked men. 1. What is said to have occurred in the "beginning of the reign of Zedekiah" is more definitely set to his fourth year and fifth month. The Jews used the phrases, "the beginning" and the "latter end," to denote in a general way the early part and the latter part. In this case, since Zedekiah reigned eleven years, events in his fourth year would be in the former, the early part, or "the beginning." This transaction was public, in the presence of the priests, and of all the people in the Temple. 2-4. Thus did this false prophet labor directly to gainsay and deny what Jeremiah had been saying. Observe, he does not shrink from using the solemn and prophetic forms of announcement: "Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel," and this in the very face of the stern prohibition of God Himself. His special points are, that God says He has broken the yoke of the king of Babylon; that within two full years He will restore all the sacred vessels taken from the Temple to Babylon with Jeconiah, and will bring back Jeconiah himself. This indicates a degree of boldness and daring in falsehood which can scarcely be accounted for without supposing the presence and inspiration of the "father of lies." 5,6. This first reply of Jeremiah is not to be considered as prophecy or as a message from the Lord. He does not prefix to it the formula of a Divine message, "Thus saith the Lord." He means only this: I shall be as well pleased as yourself to see all the sacred vessels of the Temple restored and all the captives brought back. 7-9. This part of Jeremiah's reply mildly suggests that there have been prophets in former ages, and that the test of their Divine mission has always been the fulfilment of their predictions. 10,11. Determined to be behind the true prophets in none of the methods used by them to deepen the impression of their words, Hananiah takes the yoke from Jeremiah's neck and breaks it. This symbolic act should naturally indicate that the Lord had reversed His purpose, and would break the power of Babylon within two years. Consequently until that time this test of fulfilment could not be applied to prove him a false prophet. Jeremiah here withdraws, having no further special message from the Lord to deliver. As the case stands, there is nothing more for him to do. Two years elapsed will show Hananiah to be a lying prophet—if the Lord shall see fit to wait so long. Jeremiah had nothing to do but wait for that time, or at least for some further commission from the Lord. 15–17. The daring hardihood and blasphemy of Hananiah called for signal retribution. Hence another solemn message from the Lord, first forewarning, then smiting. The warning was given in the fifth month (verse 1). The fatal blow fell in the seventh, with only two months' delay, giving him time for reflection and repentance, as the usage of human courts fixes a future day for execution, to give the culprit time for thought and for preparation to die. H. C.—So Hananiah the prophet died the same year, in the seventh month. This simple record of the result has always seemed to us unequalled in that simplicity which rises to grandeur. Here is no carefulness of minute statement as to exact fulfilment; no call to admiration at the effect of the Lord's judgment. "So Hananiah died;" that is all. There is a world of meaning in that "so"—indicating that it was simply the most natural and inevitable thing in the world that Hananiah should die—nothing at all to marvel at that he did die—when his doom had been thus denounced. Kitto. 29 : 1 Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders of the captivity, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon : 2 (after that Jeconiah the king, and the queen-mother, and the eunuchs, and the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen, and the smiths, were departed from Jerusalem ;) 3 by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah 4 king of Judah sent unto Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,) saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all the captivity, whom I have caused to be carried 5 away captive from Jerusalem unto Babylon : Build ye houses, and dwell in them ; and plant 6 gardens, and eat the fruit of them ; take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters ; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and 7 daughters ; and multiply ye there, and be not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the LORD for it : for in 8 the peace thereof shall ye have peace. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel : Let not your prophets that be in the midst of you, and your diviners, deceive you, neither 9 hearken ye to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto 10 you in my name : I have not sent them, saith the LORD. For thus saith the LORD, After seventy years be accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word 11 toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope in your 12 latter end. And ye shall call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken 13 unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your 14 heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD, and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD ; and I will bring you again unto the place whence I caused you to be 15 carried away captive. For ye have said, The LORD hath raised us up prophets in Babylon. 16 For thus saith the LORD concerning the king that sitteth upon the throne of David, and concerning all the people that dwell in this city, your brethren that are not gone forth with you 17 into captivity ; thus saith the LORD of hosts : Behold, I will send upon them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are 18 so bad. And I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an execration, and an astonishment, and an hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations 19 whither I have driven them : because they have not hearkened to my words, saith the LORD, wherewith I sent unto them my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them ; 20 but ye would not hear, saith the LORD. Hear ye therefore the word of the LORD, all ye of the captivity, whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. 21. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and concerning Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, which prophesy a lie unto you in my name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall 22 slay them before your eyes; and of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captives of Judah which are in Babylon, saying, The LORD make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab, 23 whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire: because they have wrought folly in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbours' wives, and have spoken words in my name falsely, which I commanded them not; and I am he that knoweth, and am witness, saith the LORD. 24,25. And concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite thou shalt speak, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, Because thou hast sent letters in thine own name unto all the people that are at Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, 26 and to all the priests, saying, The LORD hath made thee priest in the stead of Jehoiada the priest, that ye should be officers in the house of the LORD, for every man that is mad, and 27 maketh himself a prophet, that thou shouldest put him in the stocks and in shackles. Now therefore, why hast thou not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, which maketh himself a prophet 28 to you, forasmuch as he hath sent unto us in Babylon, saying, The captivity is long: build 29 ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them? And Zepha- 30 niah the priest read this letter in the ears of Jeremiah the prophet. Then came the word of 31 the LORD unto Jeremiah, saying, Send to all them of the captivity, saying, Thus saith the LORD concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because that Shemaiah hath prophesied unto 32 you, and I sent him not, and he hath caused you to trust in a lie; therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite, and his seed; he shall not have a man to dwell among this people, neither shall he behold the good that I will do unto my people, saith the LORD: because he hath spoken rebellion against the LORD. Chap. 29. According to the proper arrangement, this chapter appears to follow the 24th; being the second of those which were delivered in the early part of Zedekiah's reign. (See the note at the beginning of chap. 24.) Some embarrassment and incoherence are to be perceived in particular parts of this chapter, which are removed by transposing verse 15 and placing it immediately before verse 21, where it stands in the version of the Septuagint. By this emendation a due order and connection is restored both in the place from whence the verse is removed and in that to which it is restored. This chapter contains the substance of two letters written at different times, as is evident from comparing verse 28 with verses 4, 5; although the title at the beginning announces only one, and there is no mark of distinction to be found afterward. The distinction, however, is certainly to be made at the end of verse 20. For in the first letter the prophet exhorts the captives to accommodate themselves to their present circumstances, under an assurance that their captivity would last to the end of seventy years, after which period, and not before, God would visit and restore them. And to prevent their listening to any false suggestions that might flatter them with hopes of a speedy return, he informs them of what would happen to their brethren that were left behind at Jerusalem, for whom a harder fate was reserved than for those that had been carried away. After this, finding, as it should seem, upon the return of the messengers, the little credit his first message had met with, he sends a second to the same persons, denouncing the Divine judgments against three of their false prophets, by whose influence chiefly the people had been prevented from hearkening to his good advice. Blayney. The second letter by Jeremiah followed the first with no long interval. This letter shows that the Lord made use of Jeremiah in His spiritual care and culture, not only of the people remaining in Judea, but of those who were taken into captivity as well. The sympathies of the prophet were strongly with those captives. In his policy he warmly approved of their giving themselves up to the king of Babylon. He knew that God had repeatedly promised good to those who should do this, and that He depended on those captives to preserve His word and name among His people, and purposed to take from among them His choice seed for replanting the land of promise, and re-establishing the institutions of religion there. Hence He entered warmly into the spirit of this interesting correspondence. It is not clear that Jeremiah ever went to Babylon to labor with his captive brethren there in person. The next thing to a personal visit—a kind, fraternal epistle—he could give them, and did. Of his mission to the Euphrates, referred to in chap. 13:1-7, nothing further is known, save that briefest possible notice. H. C. 1. To the prophets.** Ezekiel and Daniel were then in captivity—Daniel in Babylon, and Ezekiel in Mesopotamia, on the river Chebar. Ezekiel did not begin prophesying till the fifth year of the captivity of Jeconiah; but Daniel was already acknowledged as a prophet of the Lord. There were probably other prophets also in that country, to whom Jeremiah addresses this letter; nor is it at all singular, that one prophet should advise and instruct others. David received instructions from Nathan; and Peter informs us that the prophets applied themselves to the study of the writings of the more ancient prophets. Daniel read and studied Jeremiah. The Chaldee, under the name of “prophets,” understands the scribes, or doctors of the law; the LXX translate the Hebrew by “false prophets.” Calmet. 1-3. “The remnant of the elders” are named specially and first among the parties addressed, because they have all along been the most hopeful class. If the reader will bear in mind, that falling back to a point twelve years before the captivity of Jehoiachin, we come to the death of Josiah, and that his great reformation commenced in his twelfth year, while his death occurred in his thirty-first, he will see that those nineteen years of reformation would lie within the active life of the elders here addressed. Might not these words of the prophet stir up in their hearts precious reminiscences of those better days? The reader will find this captivity of Jeconiah and others historically recorded in 2 K. 24:12-16; 2 Chron. 36:10, and referred to in Jer. 22:26; 28:4. 4-6. Let them by all means keep their eye on the hand and purpose of God in their captivity, and so the more patiently bear their privations and wait in hope for the good which lies at the end of all the Lord’s great purposes. This point having been suggested, the Lord directs them to make their homes there, to surround themselves as they might be able with the comforts of life, and raise up families so that they should be not diminished, but rather increased, because better times would surely come for their children to enjoy and to fill with their earnest and useful activities. H. C. How to make the best of adversity. Jeremiah advises the captives in Babylon to take a course that is eminently brave and wise. The first ininclination would be to stir up a useless revolt, the second to sit down in sullen despondency. When trouble overcomes us we are tempted to follow one or other of these courses—to rebel or to despair. Jeremiah teaches us, as he taught the Jews of his day, that neither is right. He indicates a better way. Submit patiently to inevitable adversity. Seek the brightest course under the darkest circumstances. The captives could not return home. They were not, therefore, to treat the land of their exile as a hopeless desert, but to build and plant and eat the fruit of it. Cherish hopes for the future under the most trying present circumstances. The Jews were to remember the promise of the restoration. They were not to allow their race to die out (verse 6). A great future was still before them. History has confirmed the prediction of the prophets. The scattered and ruined people were recalled to their homes. From the stock of the despondent exiles there sprang not only all that was great and good in later Jewish history, but also Jesus Christ and Christianity. In our darkest moments we should not forget that, though not a ray of light has yet appeared on the horizon, the sun will surely rise and the day return. Christianity is peculiarly a religion of the future; it encourages us to press forward to the golden age which is yet to come. Adency. 7. It behoved them so to pray and labor for the good of even proud Babylon, that their spirit and life should adorn the religion of the God of their fathers. So they would make their life both useful and pleasant while they remained there, and would hopefully prepare the way for returning to their own more loved home, in the land made sacred by ancient promise and by their fathers’ graves. H. C. God assures His people that Babylon’s peace is their peace. This sets before us a principle of action which Christian people cannot too diligently observe. While it is true that we are not of this world, but must constantly rise superior to its habits and maxims, yet at the same time we cannot do too much to maintain the stability of governments and the public order of the land in which we live. While the Spirit of God promotes the highest individuality, He also promotes the greatest order (1 Tim. 2:1-4). Y. “In the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” All parts of the social system are so linked together by a law of mutual dependence and influence that the well-being of one is, in a measure, the well-being of all. “The eye cannot say to the hand," etc. ; "Whether one member suffer," etc. We are all personally affected for good or ill by the political order and the general tone of the moral life around us. There are deep rankling wounds in the body politic—ignorance, drunkenness, roving beggary, domestic vice and violence, the systematic training of the young in crime, the oppression of the hireling in his wages, etc.—which it is to the interest of us all most earnestly to seek to heal. No class of the community can escape the ill effect of these things, and religion does but bring us into the deeper sympathy with those who most suffer by such forms of wrong. And we are bound to live for the world's highest benefit. "Seek the peace of the city, and pray to the Lord for it." Real peace is the fruit of righteousness. There can be none while the Divine order is violated and the Divine will set at nought. The Gospel is in every way God's message of peace to the world. The Church is called to be the "light of the world" and the "salt of the earth," as a witness for God's truth and righteousness. The Christian philanthropist alone has in his hands a thorough cure for the diseases and wounds of our humanity; and of all the weapons he can wield in his conflict with them, none so mighty as prayer, inasmuch as that unseals the fount of all blessing, and brings down from heaven the healing, saving power. Well may a Christian apostle enlarge and emphasize the old prophetic message, saying, "I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men" (1 Tim. 2:1-4). W. Thus the primitive Christians, according to the temper of their holy religion, prayed for the powers that were, though they were persecuting powers. And if they were to pray for and seek the peace of the land of their captivity, much more reason have we to pray for the welfare of the land of our nativity, where we are a free people under a good government, that in the peace thereof we and ours may have peace. Every passenger is concerned in the safety of the ship. H. 8,9. Even far away in Babylon and among the better class of the Jews, the false prophets and vain dreamers were still a curse to the people, and it was needful that the Lord through Jeremiah should warn them of these men. H. C. 10. After seventy years be accomplished at Babylon. This prophecy was first delivered in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and the same year it began to be put in execution, seventy years from which time will bring us down to the first year of Cyrus, when he made proclamation for the restoration of the Jews, and the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem. If we fix the commencement of the seventy years at the time when Jerusalem was burned and destroyed, their conclusion will fall about the time when Darius issued his decree for rebuilding the Temple, after the work had been suspended. Or if we fix their commencement at the time when Nebuzaradan carried away the last remainder of the people, and completed the desolation of the land, their conclusion will fall about the time when the Temple was finished and dedicated, and the first passover was solemnized in it. "So that," as Dean Prideaux says, "taking it which way you will, and at what stage you please, the prophecy of Jeremiah will be fully and exactly accomplished concerning this matter." It may be said to have been accomplished at three different times and in three different manners; and therefore, possibly, all might have been intended, though the first, without doubt, was the principal object of the prophecy. Bp. Newton. I will visit you. There were but few of these captives, in comparison, who returned in person to their own country. (See Ezra 3:12.) So this promise was chiefly fulfilled in their posterity; and it is common in Scripture to speak of blessings bestowed upon the children, as if they had been actually made good to their progenitors. W. Lowth. 10,11. It had been intimated in a somewhat indefinite way that the captivity would continue but seventy years (chap. 25:11, 12). The precise thing said there was that those nations, subdued by the king of Babylon, should serve him seventy years, and then the Lord would reverse those political relations and make Babylon the servant and other nations the masters. But here it is clearly said that after seventy years God would visit His people there and restore them to their own land. To confirm this to their wavering hearts, the Lord beautifully subjoins, "For I know My thoughts touching you, that they are thoughts of good and not of evil, to make your latter end hopeful and happy." H. C. 11. Thoughts of peace. Such is the consoling word that God sends to His "banished ones" in their affliction. He bids His servant "speak comfortably" to them, even now that their "warfare" is only beginning, and they are having their first taste of the bitterness of exile. Blending with the lamentations of the weeping captives as they "hung their harps on the willows by the waters of Babylon," we can imagine that this gracious word would have a more salutary effect upon them than the living voice of the prophet ever had. W. 12,13. But these great blessings can come only through prayerfully seeking the face of God and finding mercy before Him. The blessedness of this captivity would lie in its thoroughly uprooting their idolatry, emptying their souls of all self-righteous reliance on the forms of religion, and in casting them only and wholly upon the Lord their God. Thus self-emptied, consciously guilty and needy, they would seek after God. At this point He gave them His promise to hear and to save. Beautifully the Lord expands these cardinal ideas in respect to what constitutes successful seeking: "Ye shall seek and find when ye shall search for Me with all your heart." When they were deeply and solemnly in earnest, when they could think of nothing else, when their whole souls were absorbed in the one supreme desire to find God—then, so seeking, they would surely find. To such seeking God gives His promise, but to no other sort of seeking, to no seeking which enlists but half the heart, to no seeking which but slightly moves the sensibility, or which inspires effort only now and then, spasmodically. The illustrations given to the same point by our Divine Lord in such cases as blind Bartimeus, the Syrophenician woman, and the prodigal son, develop the same quenchless zeal, the same determined purpose, the same intense, all-absorbing interest and devotion. Precisely this is searching for the Lord with all the heart. It is the only way of seeking God so as to find Him. God has a right to demand both honesty and sincerity; and He does. He has a right to suspend the blessings of His mercy upon this sole condition, that they shall be sought with all the heart. He does so. H. C. 12. Ye shall call upon Me, ye shall go and pray unto Me, and I will hearken unto you.** The Lord's ear is inclined to hear the prayer of the godly. He takes it well that they offer it up as due worship to Him; that they desire thus to serve Him. He accepts of those offerings graciously, passes by the imperfections in them, and hath regard to their sincere intention and desire. It pleases Him well, that they delight in prayer as converse with Him; that they love to be much with Him, to speak to Him often, and still aspire by this way to more acquaintance with Him. He willingly hears their prayers as the expressions of their necessities and desires, being both rich and bountiful; He loves to have blessings drawn out of His hands that way. Leighton. Genuine prayer is passing by and putting aside all legal and official conceptions of God, and coming face to face with Him as Father, Friend and Helper. It does not leave out of thought the conception of His kingdom, the holy and beneficent order of His universe. It cries out for it. But it begins with His name, His personality. It takes the gifts that that order brings as the daily bread from a Father's hand. It cries for His forgiveness of the sins which have come between us and Him, and pleads to that end that we have been forgiving and loving toward our brethren. It cries for His wise guidance through a world of temptations, where every step we take seems to be determined by inevitable law. S. S. T. Prayer is the expression of our wants to God as our Father. Too many pray as criminals deprecating the wrath of a judge, instead of praying as children asking the blessing of our Father who is in heaven. The first model prayer taught us is, "Our Father which art in heaven;" and the less of deprecation and the more filial confidence in our prayers, the more we exhibit the characteristic spirit of the Gospel of Christ. But when all is deep and earnest deprecation of wrath, without one single expression of filial trust, such a litany or prayer sounds more like the wail of despair than the hopeful cry of the still beloved, though long a prodigal son, seeking bread from his father's stores, and a shelter under his father's roof-tree. For what did the prodigal say, at his greatest distance from home, in the depth and bitterness of his worst estrangement? "I will arise and go to my father." That was the last lingering tie or link within him, and that thought thrilled, in blessed vibrations, through his soul, awakened in his lonely heart all the music of the blessed, and made him arise, and with delighted hopes go to his father, and seek—what he found there—a blessing, and bread, and a joyous welcome. Cumming. What is prayer for? Not to inform God nor to move Him, unwilling, to have mercy, as if, like some proud prince, He required a certain amount of recognition of His greatness as the price of His favors. But to fit our own hearts by conscious need, and true desire and dependence, to receive the gifts which He is ever willing to give, but we are not always fit to receive. As Augustine has it, the empty vessel is by prayer carried to the full fountain. A. M. As faith is the one great principle of the spiritual life, so is prayer its one great exercise. And though prayer is a very simple thing, and it is perfectly easy to grasp the idea of going to God for what we want, and telling out before Him the desires of our hearts, all experience teaches that prayer—at all events, stated and continuous prayer—is very difficult to practise. The true policy in spiritual things always is to endeavor, and to go on endeavoring, after that which we feel quite unequal to do. Where you cannot pray as you wish, pray at all events as you can, and make more vigorous endeavor. If you are troubled and rebuffed by distractions in your prayer, pray on; “stretch forth thy hand” at the gate of mercy, till something is put into it from above. E. M. G. The pattern of prayer taught by Christ teaches that true prayer is a child’s voice to its Father; that it puts God’s glory first and ourselves second; that the deepest desire should be for the hallowing in men’s hearts and thoughts of the revealed character of God, which will bring His kingdom; that, for ourselves, our outward wants should be the lowest subject of prayer, and our desires be limited within modest compass; that forgiveness is our universal and daily need, and cannot be given to the unmerciful; and that, after pardon, we ever need guarding, lest we fall. A. M. “No answer to prayer” must ever be written over the petitions of all who, having asked, expect that all is done. Even if the thing asked is all and altogether beyond the range of what we ourselves could bring about, nevertheless we may have an all-important part in the answering of our requests. No one can tell what little thing, wrought in answering obedience to God’s call, may fashion itself into the events that are to combine in unity to make our answered prayer, or that may fit us for the reception of the answer. For it is as true that we need the preparation for the answer to our prayers as it is that we need to pray at all. All praying has a place, a most real place, in the economy of God, as He shapes us after His image and likeness as the clay is fashioned by the hands of the potter. Perhaps it is here that more prayers are awaiting an answer, and so are at present unanswered for individual souls, than almost anywhere else; for the preparation within for the answer, and the moving out which has in it the willingness to do all that God gives us to do, to make the answer to the prayer easy and present and practically possible. It may be that God is going to heal with a word, but it is much more likely that He will call upon us in all natural and spiritual ways to have some part in the healing, and men must not complain that prayer is not answered who are not up and about the work God appoints for them. One way and only one makes possible no prayers unanswered, that we seek only God, God Himself; then everywhere, on the right hand and the left, on sea or land, we can never miss the answer to all our desire, for God is in all places, and neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate us from His love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Anon. 13. Ye shall seek Me and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.** Religious character is more than mere natural character, and different from it, as what we are by constitution is different from what we do, and practically seek, and freely become. It is that which lies in choice, and for which we are thus responsible. It is made by what the soul’s liberty goes after with a reigning devotion, what it chooses and lives for as its end. If the man, therefore, lives for himself or for the world, as all men do in the way of sin, he is without God, without religious character, and is all the more guilty in it that his nature is feeling after God in throes of disappointed longing. A man is never in religious character till he has found God; and he will never find Him till his whole voluntary nature goes after Him, and chimes with Him in His principles and ends. Whatever ends he has had of his own must be given up as being his own, and God’s must be enthroned in him by a supreme devotion. “Ye shall seek for Me and find Me, if ye search for Me with all your heart.” Bushnell. In seeking God, we must search for Him, accomplish a diligent search, search for directions in seeking Him and encouragements to our faith and hope. We must continue seeking, and take pains in seeking as those that search; and this we must do with our heart, in sincerity and uprightness, and with our whole heart, with vigor and fervency, putting forth all that is within us in prayer; those who thus seek God shall find Him, and shall find Him their bountiful Rewarder (Heb. 11:6). He never said to such, Seek ye Me in vain. H. Our lives are determined by our practical theology, our working knowledge of or our common feeling about God. The life is never better than the heart’s secret thought of God. True love makes straight paths from heart to heart. Who truly loves must seek, as the neodle does the magnet point. "And ye shall find Me." Ah, what a discovery is that! Men count those fortunate who discover a gold-mine, who discover a continent, who discover a law in nature, who discover a new star calmly sweeping through space—but what is that to him who discovers God! Interior. God must have the heart or nothing, and have its direct loyalty and love, or none that is accepted. He looks in to see which way the inmost spirit kneels—and not Sunday only, but all days—whether toward the Father of Righteousness or some idol of the popular admiration. He lifts the folds that are plaited so cunningly over our inmost selves, and judges what that inner rule is by which we refuse or accept bribes from the hand of man or woman, by which we do or scorn to do an unclean deed. So that, in reality, the difference between seeking God and seeking Him not is something more than a relative or comparative difference. It is absolute and decisive. It supposes a distinct centre of attraction, and so another sort of life; what the New Testament calls a "new man." F. D. H. He seeks us before we seek Him. Our search is the response of our hearts to His invitation (Ps. 27:8). But this search must be made. The promise of finding is attached to the condition of seeking (Matt. 7:7). The prodigal must return to his father before he can receive the welcome home. Men are waiting for God to visit them, reveal Himself to them, do something that will bring them back to Him. They may wait forever and in vain. God is waiting for us. It is our part to arise and seek Him. This search must be with all the heart. The reason why we are disappointed of the answers of our prayers is often that our prayers are so insincere, so cold, so half-hearted. It is reasonable to expect God, the all-seeing, to answer our prayers, not according to the vigor of the language, but according to the fervency of our desires. If we value the knowledge and communion of God aright, we shall seek Him with all the heart; with the heart—i.e., sincerely, spiritually, inwardly, not with mere formal inquiries; and with the whole heart—i.e., with singleness of purpose, intensity, earnestness. "Blessed are they that seek God with all the heart, for they shall find Him;" that is enough for a perfect beatitude. To find God is to find our light, our rest, our home. To know Him is life eternal; to commune with Him is the joy of heaven. Adeney. 15. Because ye have said. The Septuagint properly inserts this verse between the twentieth and the twenty-first, and thus the connection here is not disturbed, and the connection below completed. A. C. 20-23. From general remarks about the false prophets, Jeremiah here becomes specific; names two of these false prophets, probably the leaders; details their case and announces their terrible doom. When people wished to imprecate the direst curses on the worst of men, they might say, "The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king roasted in the fire." Their crimes included both the most flagrant immoralities and the most shocking blasphemy in their work as false prophets. H. C. 20. Hear ye therefore the word. Dr. Blayney thinks there were two letters written by the prophet to the captives in Babylon, and that the first ends with this verse. That having heard, on the return of the embassy (Elasah and Gemariah, whom Zedekiah had sent to Babylon, and to whom the prophet entrusted the above letter—verse 3), that the captives had not received his advices favorably, because they were deceived by false prophets among them, who promised them a speedier deliverance, he therefore wrote a second letter, beginning with the fifteenth verse, and going on with the twenty-first, etc., in which he denounces God's judgments on three of the chief of those—Ahab, Zedekiah and Shemaiah. 21. He shall slay them before your eyes. Nebuchadnezzar would be led by political reasons to punish these pretended prophets, as their predictions tended to make his Israelitish subjects uneasy and disaffected; and might excite them to rebellion. He therefore slew them; two of them it appears he burned alive—viz., Ahab and Zedekiah. Burning alive was a Chaldean punishment (Dan. 3:6; Amos 2:1). From them other nations borrowed it. A. C. 24. Speak to Shemaiah. Zephaniah was the second priest, sagan, or chief priest's deputy; and Seraiah, high-priest, when Jerusalem was taken. (See chap. 52:24.) Shemaiah directs his letter to the former, and tells him that God had appointed him to supply the place of the high-priest, who was probably then absent. His name was either Azariah, or Seraiah, his son, but called Jehoiada from the remarkable zeal and courage of that pontiff. (See the passages in the margin.) Dodd. 24-29. Another of those false prophets among the captives at Babylon, Shemaiah by name, did not like the command sent out by the hand of Jeremiah, "Build ye houses and make yourselves homes and families there in Babylon." So he wrote back to Jerusalem to all the people there, especially addressing Zephaniah, the priest, reminding him of his responsibilities and of his duty to suppress such mad fellows as the Lord's true prophets by imprisonment and the stocks. He especially named Jeremiah of Anathoth, who he said was assuming to be a prophet of the Lord among them. The reader will note the contemptuous tone of his description of the Lord's true prophets, "For every man that is mad, and that maketh himself a prophet." On receiving this letter, Zephaniah read it to the prophet Jeremiah. H. C.—God's faithful prophets are here represented as prophets of their own making, usurpers of the office, and lay intruders, and as men that were mad, actuated by some demon, and not divinely inspired; or as distracted men, and men in a frenzy. Thus the characters of the false prophets are thrown upon the true ones. If this had been indeed their character, they ought to be bound as madmen and punished as pretenders, and therefore he concludes that Jeremiah must be so done to. He does not bid them examine whether Jeremiah could produce any proofs of his mission, and could make it to appear that he was not mad. H. 30-32. Hereupon the Lord gives Jeremiah a special message for this Shemaiah, which is sent to all the captives—a terrible warning to them all to beware how they encouraged the false prophets, how they implicated themselves in their wickedness, or in any wise gave heed to their falsehoods. It also denounced upon him the utter extermination of his family. God will punish him and his posterity. Thus this chapter affords yet other illustrations of the bold and daring impiety of the false prophets; of the pernicious and widespread results of their influence, and of the fearfully stringent measures which became necessary to eradicate this evil. H. C. 30:1, 2 THE word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD, the God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will turn again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it. 4 And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. 5 For thus saith the LORD: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. 6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child: wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? 7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but 8 he shall be saved out of it. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bands; and strangers shall 9 no more serve themselves of him: but they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their 10 king, whom I will raise up unto them. Therefore fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be quiet and at ease, and 11 none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, but I will not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee with judgement, and will in no wise leave thee unpunished. 12, 13 For thus saith the LORD, Thy hurt is incurable, and thy wound grievous. There is none to plead thy cause, that thou mayest be bound up: thou hast no healing medicines. 14 All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not: for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one; for the greatness of thine iniquity, 15 because thy sins were increased. Why criest thou for thy hurt? thy pain is incurable: for the greatness of thine iniquity, because thy sins were increased, I have done these things 16 unto thee. Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and all 17 that prey upon thee will I give for a prey. For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD; because they have called thee an outcast, saying, It 18 is Zion, whom no man seeketh after. Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will turn again the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have compassion on his dwelling places; and the city shall be 19 builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small. 20 Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me, 21 and I will punish all that oppress them. And their prince shall be of themselves, and their ruler shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is he that hath had boldness to approach unto me? saith the LORD. 22 And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. 23 Behold, the tempest of the LORD, even his fury, is gone forth, a sweeping tempest: it shall 24 burst upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the LORD shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days ye shall understand it. Chap. 30. This chapter and the next are in the same strain, and must be assumed to bear the same date. They manifestly contemplate the Captivity as fully begun, and were written for the reading and the comfort of the exiles already in their foreign land. For it should be noted that this is not a message to be pronounced orally to the people, but it is to be written in a book, so that it may be sent to the exiles as in the case of the letters contained in chap. 29. Thus written for the people in their captivity, its tone is mainly one of promise and of rich encouragement. H. C. This undated prophecy may not be unreasonably presumed to have followed immediately after the preceding one, in which the restoration of the people from the Babylonish captivity is in direct terms foretold. From hence the transition is natural and easy to the more glorious and general restoration that was to take place in a more distant period, and was designed for the ultimate object of the national hopes and expectations. Both events are frequently thus connected together in the prophetic writings, and perhaps with this design, that when that which was nearest at hand should be accomplished it might afford the strongest and most satisfactory kind of evidence that the latter, how remote soever its period, would in like manner be brought about by the interposition of Providence in its due season. Blayney. 1-3. Verse 2 raises the question, How much is comprised in "all the words I have spoken to thee"? Verse 4 seems designed to answer the question and to suggest the limitation—viz., to these words which follow in this immediate connection, including this chapter and probably the next (31). Hence it does not include all that we now have in the Book of Jeremiah. At another time he was directed to write out all his prophecies. (See chap. 36:2.) Verse 3 gives the key note of this chapter and the next—the great elementary promise of restoration from the captivity to their own land. This would be naturally addressed to the exiles. H. C. 3. I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah. Israel and Judah having been carried away by two distinct captivities, into different parts of the world, several prophecies of the Old Testament not only foretell the restoration of each of them, but likewise their reunion after their restoration. (See Ezek. 37: 6-22; Hos. 1:11.) W. Lowth. The present physical, moral, and social condition of the Jews must be a miracle. We can come to no other conclusion. Had they continued from the commencement of the Christian era down to the present hour in some such national state in which we find the Chinese, walled off from the rest of the human family, and by their selfishness on a national scale, and their repulsions of alien elements, resisting every assault from without in the shape of hostile invasion, and from an overpowering national pride, forbidding the introduction of new and foreign customs, we should not see so much mystery interwoven with their existence. But this is not their state—far from it. They are neither a united and independent nation, nor a parasitic province. They are peeled, and scattered, and crumbled into fragments, but, like the broken globules of quicksilver, instinct with a cohesive power, ever ready to amalgamate. Geography, arms, genius, politics, and foreign help do not explain their existence; time and climate and customs equally fail to unravel it. None of these are or can be the springs of their perpetuity. They have been spread over every part of the habitable globe; they have lived under the régime of every dynasty; they have shared the protection of just laws, the proscriptions of cruel ones, and witnessed the rise and progress of both; they have used every tongue, and have lived in every latitude. The snows of Lapland have chilled, and the suns of Africa scorched them. They have drunk the Tiber, the Thames, the Jordan, the Mississippi. In every century, and every degree of latitude and longitude, we find a Jew. It is not so with any other race. Empires the most illustrious have fallen, and buried the men that constructed them; but the Jew has lived among the ruins, a living monument of indestructibility. Persecution has unsheathed the sword and lighted the fagot. Papal superstition and Moslem barbarism have smote with unsparing ferocity; penal rescripts and deep prejudice have visited on them the most unrighteous chastisement, and notwithstanding all, they survive. Like their own bush on Mount Horeb, Israel has continued in the flames, but unconsumed. They are the aristocracy of Scripture, bereft of their coronets—princes in degradation. A Babylonian, a Theban, a Spartan, an Athenian, are names known in history only; their shadows alone haunt the world and flicker on its tablets. A Jew walks every street, dwells in every capital, traverses every exchange, and relieves the monotony of the nations of the earth. The race has inherited the heirloom of immortality, incapable of extinction or amalgamation. Like streamlets from a common head, and composed of waters of a peculiar nature, they have flowed along every stream, without blending with it, or receiving its color or its flavor, and traversed the surface of the globe, to the close of the many centuries, peculiar, distinct, alone. The Jewish race at this day is the most striking seal of the truth of the Sacred Oracles. There is no possibility of accounting for their perpetual isolation, their depressed but distinct being on any grounds save those revealed in the records of truth. Their aggregate and individual character is as remarkable as their circumstances. Meanness the most abject and pride the most overbearing—the degradation of helots, and yet a conscious and a manifest sense of the dignity of a royal priesthood; looking back along many thousand years to ancestry beside which that of our peers and princes is but of yesterday; regarding justly Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their great progenitors, and pressing forward on the wings of faith, and hope, and promise to a long-expected day when they, now kings and princes in disguise, shall become so indeed by a manifestation the most glorious and a dispensation the most sublime. The people are a perpetual miracle—a living echo of heaven's holy tones, prolonged from generation to generation. Fraser's Magazine. I behold the unconverted Gentiles barring the path to the cross for the sons of Israel, and I can understand the strange logic of the Epistle to the Romans, that only when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in will the hardness of Israel give way. They have been scattered to the ends of the earth; they have been ground between the millstones of race prejudices; but they have maintained their lineage and blood, and they have never ceased to be proud of their traditions. The future has its mission for them, but our hands must break the bars, and beat down the gates that have hitherto kept them back. Even in their exile, they are "beloved for the fathers' sakes," and their conversion can be nothing less than "life from the dead," the herald of the millennial reign. Behrends. 4-7. This passage contemplates the exile, with its antecedents, as "the day of Jacob's trouble," and has for its special object to say, "Yet he shall be saved out of it." H. C. 7. Alas! for that day is great. The word day often comprehends a succession of time, in which a whole series of events is transacted; so it here contains the whole time of the siege and taking of Jerusalem, the destruction of the city and Temple, and the carrying away the people captive. This is described as a time of great tribulation, in which it was an earnest of the day of judgment, called the great and terrible day of the Lord (Joel 2:31). W. Lowth. 8. "In that day" is not precisely the time of Jacob's trouble, said in verse 7 to be great, but is rather the day in which he shall be saved out of that trouble. 9. The Jews shall serve, not the king of Babylon, but the royal son of David, their own King Messiah. This would be really serving the Lord their God, both because this King Messiah is Himself God, and because He receives His kingdom from the Father. Both modes of expression are used in the Scriptures. According to His oft-repeated promise, the Lord will raise up this glorious king for them in His own due time. (See the same phraseology, Hos. 3:5; Ezek. 34:23, 24; 37:24, and the same essential ideas in 2 Sam. 7:12-16; Ps. 2:6-8; 89:19-37.) 10. That Jacob and Israel are grouped together in this promise looks to the restoration of the true Israel, without respect to the revolt and separation into two kingdoms. We should quite miss the sense of this promise if we were to restrict it to the restoration of the Ten Tribes in the literal sense from their Assyrian exile. 11. Those nations, Assyria and Chaldea, that once scattered and enslaved the Hebrew people have long since become extinct. But God's ancient people still exist, and, what is more, the true Israel has already grown so as to pervade the great civilized nations of the world with the name of Christ. H. C. Though I make a full end of all nations, yet will I not make a full end of thee. We have here ocular proof of prophecy accomplished in an instance without a parallel. It was repeatedly foretold, both in the Old and New Testament, that, for the rejection and murder of their Messiah, the Jews should be dispersed into all countries; yet that they should not be swallowed up and lost among their conquerors, but should still subsist to latest times a distinct people. By Jeremiah God declared, "He would make an end of the nations," their oppressors, "but He would not make an end of them." It cannot be said this prediction was written since the event; and certainly an occurrence more singular or improbable could not have been predicted. In the course of human affairs, who hath heard such a thing? Yet so it is. The mighty monarchies of Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome are vanished like the shadows of the evening or the phantoms of the night. Their places know them no more. Nothing remains of them but their names; while this little despised people, strangely secure, without a friend or protector amid the wreck of empires, oppressed, persecuted, harassed always, by edicts and executioners, by murders and massacres, hath outlived the very ruins of them all. "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." Behold then a sign and a wonder; the accomplishment of prophecy in a standing miracle. Contemplate the sight as it deserves; and be not faithless, but believing. Bp. Horne. 14,15. In even a cursory review of it, one is struck with the boldness with which the Bible claims the infliction of sorrow as the intentional work of God. We find no adroit hiding of the Divine hand, no obtrusion of second causes to relieve its stern, often its appalling procedures. It is the way of science to evade the name of God. The way of revelation is to proclaim and exult in it, even when the deed done makes the ears of men tingle at its tragic story. Phelps. 16. All that prey upon thee will I give for a prey. The Assyrians were destroyed by the Babylonians; the Babylonians by the Medes and Persians; the Egyptians and Persians were destroyed by the Greeks, under Alexander. All these nations are now extinct; but the Jews, as a distinct people, still exist. A. C. 16,17. The logical connection indicated by "therefore" is this: Because thy case is desperate, past all help from thyself, and because thy lovers—the heathen whose friendship thou wert seeking, and whose gods thou wert serving—all fail thee, I will Myself undertake for thee—will devour those that devoured thee, will drive into exile those who have exiled thee, and spoil those that have spoiled thee. But unto thee will I restore health in place of thy sickness, and healing in place of thy wounds, moved to this by jealousy for mine own great name, because the nations have taunted thee as an outcast, and called thee "that Zion for whom no man cares." H. C. 17. I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord. The words that were spoken by Jeremiah to console the hearts of Israel had a deeper significance for the Israel of all ages. The ministers of Christ stand forth with a heaven sent commission to restore; it is the leading character of all their teaching. It is even felt to be so by those who reject it. And I know no more melancholy contemplation than is afforded by the sight of the numbers who, feeling the necessity, and even believing the reality, of this restoring efficacy, support with all their hearts and souls the existence of the Christian churches, that are formed to minister to its operations; acknowledge in all their words, and in many of their actions, the beauty and perfectness of our doctrine, as distinguished from all other kinds of moral instruction; contend for it earnestly in conversation, public and private; declare unreservedly for church-teaching in preference to all other teaching; and yet—as if no churches existed—as if no real change had come upon the spirit of things by the preaching of Olivet and the death of Calvary—live and move, devoted Christians—without Christianity! W. A. B. 18,19. The promise of restoration is here renewed in slightly differing phrase, but in the same general sense. "Captivity," as usual, in the sense of captives. The city shall be rebuilt on her original hill, although this word rendered "heap" may mean pile of ruins. "Hill" is its better established and more usual sense. In the remote future, and through the spiritual fulfilment of these precious promises, the city of God shall be immensely enlarged, beautified, and glorified. Externally considered, the restored Temple and city under Zerubbabel, and perhaps even under Herod the Great, never reached its magnificence in the days of Solomon. The joy and peace of the restored people in the days of Zerubbabel, and of the prophet Zechariah, were memorable rather as a token and pledge of Messianic times and blessings, than as being in themselves very great, either absolutely or relatively to the times of David and Solomon. When we cannot find an adequate fulfilment for a prophecy like this in its external and literal application, we are certainly justified in assuming its outlook onward to the better, brighter days of King Messiah, and especially so when, as here, this King Messiah is manifestly present to the prophet's thought. (See verse 9.) This view of the passage before us is supported by various parallel passages, in which the multiplying and glorifying of the future Israel stands among the prominent features of Messianic prophecy. (Cf. Ezek. 37:26; 36:37, 38, and Zech. 10:8-10.) H. C. 21. The immediate reference is to Zerubbabel and the elders who returned from the Captivity; but there is a larger significance than any merely human personage could exhaust or satisfactorily correspond to. There can be no doubt as to the Messianic character of this promise. But it is precisely the vagueness of the reference, the primary uncertainty as to who it was to be in whom all the hope of Israel was to be realized, that constituted the moral force of the prediction. In Israel was the secular government to be identified with and crowned by the moral and spiritual; but to the very last was it kept in reserve as to whether or not the kingdom thus foretold was to be of this world. Jesus Christ had Himself to declare the real essence and nature of His kingdom. He constituted the ideal Ruler of Israel in His relation to His subjects. He was to be of the same kindred. A stronger guarantee of the Divine favor could not be given. No foreigner was to hold permanent sway over the Israel of God. In one of themselves the holy people would find a legitimate centre for loyal attachment and patriotic devotion. That from their own midst their Prince should spring was proof that their independence libert" and national individuality should be preserved. He would therefore represent its honor, and secure for himself the strongest personal attachment. The hopes of the race would be embodied in such a personage, who would vitally perpetuate its glory. He was to be allied to them in their experience and sympathies. As their fellow-countryman he will understand their aims and aspirations. By the vicissitudes of their fortune his sympathies will be drawn forth, and he will share the enthusiasm of their future. In Jesus Christ these conditions were fulfilled. M. He shall approach unto Me. The words admit of being applied, with the greatest propriety, to the Lord Jesus Christ. The prophecy contained in the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters looks forward to Gospel times, and has an ultimate respect to the final restoration of the Jews, and their conversion to the Messiah, of whom Zerubbabel was an illustrious type. The prophet, foreseeing the coming of the Messiah, and deserving His character, spake with an air of surprise: "And who is He that hath boldness to approach unto Me?" None ever approached unto God so nearly, or under the same character, as He did. He, considered as man, was taken into an intimate personal union with the Deity, so as to become Immanuel, or "God with us;" and He approached to God, in the office of Mediator, to make peace between the offended Majesty of Heaven and His sinful creatures. R. Hall. 22. "Ye shall be My people, and I will be your God," is the crowning promise, full of richest significance, most compactly expressed. They shall meet all the relations of a people peculiarly the Lord's. He will be everything to them that a God can be or need be. What can be better than this? 23,24. With only slight variations these words occurred (chap. 23:19, 20). There they looked to the judgments of God brought on the land and cities of Judah for their sins through the agency of the Chaldeans. Here they must be taken in the same sense and with the same application. In this view they are parallel to verses 5-7, and are introduced here for their moral bearing on the hearts of the exiles, who amid the richest promises of mercy must not forget how terrible God's judgments have been upon their countrymen for their great sins against Him. The last clause, "In the latter days ye shall consider it," intimates the reason for introducing these verses here. It is wholesome and well to think of those fearful judgments even in the latter days of promise and hope. H. C. 31:1 At that time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. The LORD appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Again will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: again shalt thou be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Again shalt thou plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy the fruit thereof. For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the hills of Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God. For thus saith the LORD, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O LORD, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall they return hither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off; and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. For the LORD hath ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. And they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together unto the goodness of the LORD, to the corn, and to the wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD. Thus saith the LORD: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuseth to be comforted for her children, because they are not. Thus saith the LORD: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thy latter end, saith the LORD; and thy children shall come again to their own border. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus. Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a calf unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God. Surely 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. Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD. Set thee up waymarks, make thee guide-posts: set thine heart toward the high way, even the way by which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities. How long wilt thou go hither and thither, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall encompass a man. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Yet again shall they use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity: The LORD bless thee, O habitation of justice, O mountain of holiness. And Judah and all the cities thereof shall dwell therein together; the husbandmen, and they that go about with flocks. For I have satiated the weary soul, and every sorrowful soul have I replenished. Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me. Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the 28 seed of man, and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to overthrow and to destroy, and to 29 afflict; so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the LORD. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on 30 edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. 31. Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of 32. Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD. 33. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD; I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will 34 be their God, and they shall be my people: and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their 35 iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more. Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, 36 which stirreth up the sea, that the waves thereof roar; the LORD of hosts is his name: If these ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall 37 cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the LORD: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then will I also cast 38 off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD. Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower 39 of Hananel unto the gate of the corner. And the measuring line shall yet go out 40 straight onward unto the hill Gareb, and shall turn about unto Goah. And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the LORD; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever Chap. 31. This chapter continues the same subject, freshly glowing with promise and hope for the exiles. Remarkably the discourse is of Israel and Ephraim throughout verses 1-22. (See verses 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 18, 21); and then of Judah (verses 23-26), and finally of both Israel and Judah jointly (verses 27-40). This fact I take not as a prediction of the literal restoration of the Ten Tribes to Canaan, which would be all too little for promises so great, and withal would quite miss the Messianic tone and bearing of this entire portion (chaps. 30 and 31), but the fact should be taken as an index of the great depth of God's love and of the wealth of His purposed blessings for the kingdom of His anointed. H. C. 2-40. The second part of this prophecy begins (chap. 31:2), and is marked by a sudden transition to a distant period of time, represented in a vision, and embellished with a variety of beautiful scenes and images. God announces the renewal of His ancient love for Israel, and promises, in consequence thereof, a speedy restoration of their former privileges and happiness (verses 2-5). Already the heralds have proclaimed on Mount Ephraim the arrival of the joyful day; they summon the people to reassemble once more in Zion, and promulge by special command the glad tidings of salvation which God had accomplished for them. God Himself declares His readiness to conduct home the remnant of Israel from all parts of their dispersion, to compassionate and relieve their infirmities and to provide them with all necessary accommodations by the way (verses 6-9). The news is carried into distant lands, and the nations are summoned to attend to the display of God's power and goodness in rescuing His people from their stronger enemies, and in supplying them after their return with all manner of good things to the full extent of their wants and desires (verses 10-14). Here the scene changes, and two new personages are successively introduced, in order to diversify the same subject and to impress it more strongly. Rachel first, who is represented as just risen from the grave, and bitterly bewailing the loss of her children; for whom she looks about her in vain, but none are to be seen. Her tears are dried up, and she is consoled with the assurance that they are not lost forever, but shall in time be brought back to their ancient borders (verses 15-17). Ephraim comes next. He laments his past undutiful ness with great contrition and penitence, and professes an earnest desire of amendment. These symptoms of returning duty are no sooner discerned in him than God acknowledges him once more as a darling child, and resolves with mercy to receive him (verses 18-20). The virgin of Israel is then earnestly exhorted to hasten the preparations for her return, and encouraged with having the prospect of a signal miracle wrought in her favor (verses 21, 22). And the vision closes at last with a promise that the Divine blessing should again rest upon the land of Judah, and that the men of Judah should once more dwell there, cultivating it according to the simplicity of ancient institutions, and fully discharged from every want (verses 23-26). In the third part, by way of appendix to the vision, the following gracious promises are specifically annexed: that God would in time to come supply all the deficiencies of Israel and Judah, and would be as diligent to restore as He had ever been to destroy them, and would not any more visit the offences of the fathers upon the children (verses 27-30). That He would make with them a better covenant than He had made with their forefathers (verses 31-34). That they should continue His people by an ordinance as firm and as lasting as that of the heavens (verses 35-37). And that Jerusalem should again be built, enlarged in its extent and secure from future desolation (verses 33-40). Blayney. 1. The God of all the families.** Amid all the vicissitudes of nations and governments, the institution of the family has been perpetuated. Moral and spiritual forces travel along this road rather than any other. It is God's great highway for those principles which, when fully embraced by men's hearts, shall bring in the kingdom of God itself. And it is by the natural increase of the family that God designs His truth should spread and His way come to be known upon earth, and His saving health among all nations. But ere this be accomplished the family will have developed into the Church. When one and another household are possessed of a common spirit, share a common faith and hope and render obedience to one Divine law, it is in accordance with all spiritual instincts that these should meet together for their mutual comfort, edification and support. "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another." And such holy convocations have reacted on the family, and, deepening the hold of those sacred principles which first drew the members of the Church together, have made more firm the faith and hope which already existed. Thus by the Church the spirit of the family is not only preserved, but strengthened, and its perpetuation and reproduction made more certain in the future. And the process goes on. Divine principles, faith in God, fear and love of His name, established in the family, expand and develop into the church, and there slowly, with ever accelerating force, surely and irresistibly they make their way until at length it will be seen that the godly seed has the start of the seed of the wicked one, and is ever pushing it out of the way, driving it forth from its long-held but usurped dominion. In illustration of this see how the Christian races do even now inherit the earth. "The character of the family lies at the very foundation of all permanent moral improvement in the human race generally, and in Christian churches in particular; and until it be intelligently and, under the influence of right principles, practically attended to, all the preaching and all the religious machinery with which we are furnished will fail, as they have hitherto failed, to improve materially the moral condition of the world." C. 2. In the wilderness.** Though God, on the passage of the Israelites from Egypt, cut off many of them by the sword for their iniquities—some by the Amalekites, some by the hands of their brethren—yet the survivors found grace and were conducted by Him into the land of rest. God here parallels His future gracious purposes with His former merciful providences. Poole.—Through the great wilderness that lay between their country and Babylon the Lord led those captives, conducting them to a peaceful repose in Chaldea, and watching over them for good, till in due time He could bring them home again. It is no great evil to go into a wilderness, provided only that the Lord leads you, and leads from a state of sinning and turmoil to a state of peace and rest. H. C.—The afflictions of the present may not only be the punishment for past transgressions, but much more—a preparation for future blessedness and usefulness, a grace in germ if not in formation. In the case of the Church they may bring back to a study of the title-deeds of faith; in that of the individual they may promote humility, heart-searching and efforts to amend. However hard to bear, they should be endured as a grace preparing for grace. M. 3. The people are introduced as speaking here, and they cite the words of the Lord. The word rendered "of old" usually refers to place, and means from afar; but can be used of time, as our translation has it here. The sense of place would not be bad. The Lord appeared in the remote distance as one repelled and withdrawn because of my sins; yet He reveals Himself from afar with these precious words, affirming His enduring love. H. C. I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee. The Bible is constantly advancing from the domain of threatening and outward promise to that of free and unselfish love. Its strength of appeal from the very beginning lies in the mercy of God pardoning unconditionally—a mercy which, when the clouds are severed, is seen to be the face of the son of God, and the Man of Sorrows devoting Himself for those who had no claim on Him but that of guilt and misery. He comes from a throne to a cross for them, and we see written on it, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us." This love comes from a Divine fountain through a human heart, that human hearts may feel the responsive throb, "We love Him who first loved us." Ker. God loves with an everlasting love. He loves Israel, not only in the days of prosperity and wealth and beauty, but in the days of downfall and despair. His thought penetrates through to the abiding worth of humanity. We do not slander human affection, or in any way underestimate it, when we say that man cannot love his fellow-man as God loves him. God it is who first of all shows man what love really is. Y.—It is wonderful that God should ever love such unworthy creatures as we are, but it is "passing strange" that He should not cease to love us after all our provocations of His wrath, that He should love us with "an everlasting love," and should "have continued His loving-kindness unto" us. Adeney. If the Lord have "drawn you with loving-kindness," it is because He hath "loved you with an everlasting love." This grace of God is no purpose of yesterday, which may change with the perpetual changes of which you are conscious, and which rob you of your peace and joy. It was laid up for you from eternity with God. Then His heart was toward you before creation started into being. Then it was His plan to bring you to Himself. Then your Divine Surety pledged Himself to all that was necessary for your redemption, and the blessed Spirit of God engaged to perfect this grace in you till you were ripe for glory. No ages have altered this everlasting design of God; no multitude of counsels have diverted His thoughts from its accomplishment; no aggravated offences have caused Him to repent of His purpose. His eye saw you when as yet you were not; His providence has brought you into being; and His grace, beginning in eternity, has brought you into second being, and will presently issue in never-ending blessedness and glory, in the immediate vision of your God. Goode. Love may have many objects, but it must select them one by one. Love affects not masses, but individuals; not humanity, but men. "Jesus loves me," truly sings the child. "Who loved me and gave Himself for me," justly says Paul. The human heart demands the element of personal choice. The sinner needs to know and feel that God's love is fixed on him. This means personal selection. Redemption without this feature could not proceed from love; love refuses to work by any other process. Occident.—Salvation is personal. It is a relation constituted by God's love for an individual, and that individual's love for God. It finds expression in personal communion. "He is mine and I am His." It involves personal choice. All this is clear in thought, and it is the sole basis of the Christian's joy and peace in God. But the source of this definite love is the Divine nature. God would be love if there were not an intelligence in the universe beside Himself. He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him might not perish. He is quick to hear and sure to save all who will come unto Him in the only way that can be taken without trampling upon His own immaculate righteousness. He is not willing that any should perish. Interior. He that loves may be sure that he was loved first; and he that chooses God for his delight and portion may conclude confidently that God hath chosen him to be one of those that shall enjoy Him, and be happy in Him forever; for that our love and electing of Him is but the return and repercussion of the beams of His love shining upon us. Leighton. The greatness of "the love of Christ" appears in the benefits which He bestows. These are such as would never have entered into the conception of created minds. To have sin pardoned, to be set free from eternal death, this is an unspeakable deliverance; but the benefits are not only negative; they are positive in the highest degree. He accepts us, adopts us into His family; He gives His children portions of His own Spirit in their hearts; He makes them members of His body, fits them to dwell with Himself in a vast eternity, gives them to rejoice in the hope of the glory to be revealed, purifies them from their defilements, instructs them in heavenly truth, in death sustains their spirits, and after death preserves them in His holy presence for the great day when all shall be united in heaven! Christ's love, in its duration, extends from eternity to eternity. "I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." Before the mountains were brought forth, before the earth and the world were created—then His delights were among the sons of men. This earth exists chiefly as the theatre of this love. Nothing short of having His people to dwell with Himself forever can satisfy His generous and immense benevolence. He cannot be content unless they are where He is. "Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given to Me may be with Me where I am." They partake with Him of His glory, and He says to each at the hour of death, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" R. Hall. You were upon His heart from eternity; you are upon His heart this day in heaven; for you His eternal Son came to the world; for you He lived, for you He died; your love to Christ is a reflex of His and His Father's love to you. Erskine. The love of God is changeless and eternal. Heaven and earth may pass away, but the kindness of the Lord shall never depart from any of His children. Let us try to grasp this truth. Then, come what may, joy or sorrow, prosperity or adversity, we shall know always that the love of God abides unchanging—that we are held in its clasp with a hold that never can be severed. J. R. M. That there is one Being in the universe who, with no taint in His ineffable purity, can look down upon this world with mild, pitying, forgiving eyes—this one thought of God in Christ is the conception of Him against which guilt has been contending for six thousand years. The power which conquers guilt is the omnipotence of love. Let it be repeated and reiterated therefore—God is the sinner's friend. Throw open the windows to the light of heaven. Let the glory of God stream in from golden skies! The whole Godhead is the sinner's friend. "I will rejoice to do them good with my whole heart and with my whole soul." God is never more the sinner's friend than in the very quickening of conscience which he resists. Phelps. The secret of the love of God and of its eternal nal endurance is to be sought in His nature and in His relations to us. "God is love." He loves because He cannot but love, because He delights to love, because His love must be ever flowing and is so vast that it must needs flow out eternally in all directions. It is not the attraction of the object, but the character of the love, that accounts for its perpetual endurance. Adeney. Love hath for its nature to make itself known and to have itself believed. The infinite love of God to the soul is not satisfied until it pours itself into the consciousness, saying, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." There must be a distinct act of the Spirit to carry this home to the individual consciousness. And so many are the doubts and misgivings engendered by indwelling sin, that we need our beloved Saviour to tell us again and again that He is at peace with us and loves us still. The words which He employs for this purpose are the very words which stand recorded in His written testament; but they are uttered with a new tone of personal love and a voice trembling with individual compassion. J. W. A. The most wonderful thing in the universe is our Saviour's love for His own. Christ bears with all our infirmities. He never tires of our inconsistencies and unfaithfulnesses. He goes on forever forgiving and forgetting. He follows us when we go astray. He does not forget us when we forget Him. Through all our stumbling and sinning, through all our provocation and disobedience, through all our waywardnesses and stubbornnesses, through all our doubting and unfaithfulness, He clings to us still, and never lets us go. Having loved His own, He loves unto the end. J. R. M. The old taunt of His enemies, as they stood beneath His cross, might have been yielded to—"If Thou be the Son of God, come down, and we will believe." I ask why did not He? The only thing that kept Him there, the only answer to that question is—Because He loved me with an everlasting love, and died to redeem me. Because of that love, He came to earth; because of that love, He tabernacled among us; because of that love, He gazed all His life long on the cross of shame; because of that love, He trod unfaltering, with eager haste and solemn resolve, the rough and painful road; because of that love, He listened not to the voice that at the beginning tempted Him to win the world for Himself by an easier path; because of that love, He listened not—though He could have done it—to the voices that at the end taunted Him with their proffered allegiance if He would come down from the cross; because of that love, He gave up His Spirit. And through all the weariness and contumely and pain, that love held His will fixed to its purpose, and bore Him over every hindrance that barred His path. Many waters quench it not. That love is stronger than death; mightier than all opposing powers; deep and great beyond all thought or thankfulness. It silences all praise. It beggars all recompense. To believe it is life. To feel it is heaven. A. M. "I will draw all men unto Me." No demonstration of duty, no motive of interest, no portents of hell, no pictures of virtue, can win men to God like a sight of Jesus on His cross and His throne. It is when we see that He first loved us that we love Him, and we delight to serve Him because He so loved us as to give Himself for us. Then it is that the enmity of our minds against God is slain, and the penitent clings to Him like a loving child; then the root of sin, from which the works of the flesh spring with such vigor and plentifulness, is cut, and the soul, grafted into the Living Vine, Christ Jesus, brings forth grateful praise in the spiritual virtues of a Christian life. Bethune. Our safety and security lie not in our weak holding upon Christ, but in Christ's holding us fast in His everlasting arms. This is our glory and our safety, that Christ's left hand is always under us, and His right hand doth always embrace us. T. Brooks. To make Christ's forgiving love our own there must be the personal contact of my soul with the loving heart of Christ, the individual act of my own coming to Him, and, as the old Puritans used to say, "my transacting" with Him. Like the ocean of the atmosphere, His love encompasses me, and in it I live, and move, and have my being. But I must let it flow into my spirit and stir the dormant music of my soul. I can shut it out, sealing my heart love-tight against it. I do shut it out unless by my own conscious, personal act I yield myself to Him, unless by my own faith I come to Him and meet Him, secretly and really as did the penitent apostle, whom the message that proclaimed the love of His Lord emboldened to meet the Lord who loved, and by His own lips to be assured of forgiveness and friendship. It is possible to stumble at noontide as in the dark. A man may starve outside of barns filled with plenty, and his lips may be parched with thirst though he is within sight of a broad river flowing in the sunshine. So a soul may stiffen into the death of self and sin, even though the voice that wakes the dead to a life of love be calling to it. Christ and His grace are yours if you will, but the invitations and beseechings of His mercy, the constant drawings of His love, the all-embracing offers of His forgiveness, may be all in vain if you do not grasp them, and hold them fast by the hand of faith. A. M. Too late I loved thee, O thou beauty of ancient days, yet ever new; too late I loved thee. For thou wert within and I abroad; there I searched for thee, I in my deformity plunging among the fair forms which thou hast made. Thou wert with me, but I was not with thee. Things held me far from thee, which unless they were in thee were not at all. Thou didst call and shout, and didst burst through my deafness. Thou didst flash and shine and scatter my blindness. Thou didst breathe forth odors, and with every breath I draw I pant for thee. I tasted, and I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I yearn for thy peace. Where hast thou not walked with me, O Truth, teaching me what to beware and what to desire, when I referred to thee whatever I could discover in this earthly state? Nor in all these things can I find a safe place for my soul but only in thyself; there may my scattered members be gathered, so that nothing of me shall be separated from thee. And sometimes thou admittest me to an unusual affection, felt in my inmost soul, and rising to a strange sweetness, which if it were perfected in me, I know not what in it would not belong to the life to come. O Truth who art Eternity, and Love who art Truth, and Eternity who art Love, Thou art my God; to Thee do I cry night and day! Augustine. 7. We cannot fail to notice how much this verse and indeed the greater part of this chapter is in the glowing, joyous strain of Isaiah. The blessedness and glory of Zion's latter days thrill the prophet's heart, and he cannot do less than call for paeans of praise to God, and implore men to publish these glad tidings among the great nations of the earth, and stir up the people of every land to prayer and to praise. 8,9. To speak of "bringing them from the north country" links the glorious future to the sad and suffering past, showing that the Church of God is one in every age, and that from the remnant of these exiles God proposes to evolve a more glorious Church that shall embosom the mightiest nations of the earth. When He so wills it and lends His hand to do it, it will be easy to bring the captives home; the blind and the lame, the enfeebled and those of most delicate situation—all alike are borne along with ease as if on the strong arms of God's ministering angels. What are human weaknesses, and what is a dreary and vast wilderness to Him or to His people when He stands for their help! He can make their way straight and smooth, and can pour rivers of water alongside their wilderness paths; so be it their hearts are broken and humbled before Him. It is beautiful and very significant to see the returning exiles weeping and praying as they set forth and press onward in their long desert journey; but God turns their mourning to joy; makes their desert pathway a blooming paradise; and gives as His reason that great truth—good for all His people in every age: "For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My first-born." Does not the great God love His people? When their hearts are humble and tender before Him, is anything too much for Him to do for their prosperity and joy? H. C. The most solemn spiritual relations, and the most comforting promises, are presented in the Old Testament in figurative language derived from the family relationship. Jehovah is both husband and father; the Jewish Church His bride, Israel His children. The paternal training, watchfulness, goodness and mercy; the maternal tenderness; and the filial reverence, love and obedience which His children owe Him, are among the most familiar imageries employed by the prophets in their message. Thoughts like these must, surely, have shed heaven's light and sanctity around the life of the family. And so, when they speak to us of the merely earthly character of the Old Testament institutions and promises, we answer, that there are two modes of viewing the spiritual: that in which the earthly is lifted into the heavenly, which is that of the New Testament, and that in which the heavenly is brought down into the earthly, which is characteristic of the Old Testament, as preparatory to and preceding the New. A. E. 10-14. It adds to the interest of this magnificent strain of promise that God would have it proclaimed among all the Gentile nations and published in the distant islands—i.e., in all the countries lying beyond the great sea. Let them all behold and see what God will do for His people. H. C. The redemption of Israel is to be proclaimed as of universal import and consequence. The scattering of Israel may be alluded to in speaking of "the nations" and "the isles," or these may be addressed simply as onlookers of the mighty drama. What happens to God's people must concern the whole world. It betokened the restoration of God's favor (verse 10). The term of punishment was to draw to a close, and the era of reconciliation to commence. Just as He had "scattered" the Israelites, now He was about to recall them to Canaan. In the one act, as in the other, the Divine intervention and its moral significance would be made manifest. The greatest judgments of God on earth have their limits. "He will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger forever." How carefully should the times of Divine discipline and reconciliation be observed by those who are concerned in them! The power of God would be displayed in it (verses 10, 11; cf. verse 8). As Sovereign. The words used, "He that scattered Israel will gather him," would seem to mean—He that scattered Israel would alone know where to discover them again. The figure of a shepherd and his flock is also suggestive of skill and authority. As the restored unity and national life of Israel were to be a marvellous phenomenon, much more would the spiritual unity of God's people throughout the world, of which the former was but the prototype. "The Lord knoweth them that are His." Another proof of the Divine power was afforded in the fact that Israel was to be delivered from one "that was stronger than he." The power of Nebuchadnezzar was to be broken. So the world-power which prevents the true freedom and unity of the Church from being realized will be destroyed. Indeed, already Christ has declared Himself as "Him that overcometh the world;" and in view of this the "little flock" are not to be dismayed. The day is coming when all enemies will be put under the feet of Christ, the Lord of the Church. It was not only to be a restoration of the people to their own land (verses 12-14). God does nothing by halves. The industry, social and national development, and the spiritual life of Israel would be abundantly blessed. The well-being of God's people is viewed as connected—the spiritual with the material, and the material with the spiritual. There is no austerity in the religion of the restored, and yet their life is full of the spirit and practice of religion. The blessing of God upon the fruits of the earth is gratefully recognized, and as with a common thankfulness the people "flow together" to the great festivals of the Temple. It is only as men exhibit this spirit—the spirit of righteousness and thankfulness—that the earth will yield the fulness of her increase. Other things being equal, the good man will succeed better than the wicked, even in secular pursuits. “Godliness is profitable unto all things,” etc. (1 Tim. 4:8). It is to be complete and glorious. How spontaneous the piety of the redeemed! In the picture here sketched we seem to catch a glimpse of the fulness of the millennial joy. It is a state of overflowing, ecstatic blessedness. The religious and the secular pursuits of men are to be harmonized. Age is to forget its weakness, and the bereaved their grief. The Church is to share in the general prosperity, and, as a consequence of the efficiency and fervor of its ministrations, the people are to be “satisfied with My goodness.” When shall this vision of human life in its wholeness and its glory be realized? Our own times exhibit few signs of such a golden age. Yet the Word of the Lord has spoken it, and we should with patience both labor and look for its fulfilment. M. 12-14. The deepest meaning of this prophecy is that spiritual men only can really praise God, because they are praising Him out of hearts that are being sustained by the richness of spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The satisfied heart must praise, else there is a proof that the heart is not really satisfied. Satisfaction can no more be concealed than dissatisfaction. When in the writings of the apostles we come across outbursts of doxology, it is just what we might expect as being in harmony with the greatness of the blessings received. And this is just what often makes the praise part of worship eminently unsatisfactory, that men are thanking God for what they have not received. All compositions having praise and thanksgiving for their elements, and being successful compositions, must, by the very nature of the case, owe their origin to some actual experience of God’s goodness. Hence it is important in this passage to notice how three things are bound together in the one prediction. 1. There is the gift of God. 2. The consequent satisfaction. 3. The irrepressible joy. And what greater gift can we have from God than a heart filled with pure, abiding joy, free from reproach, free from apprehension? Y. 14. Shall be satisfied.** There is a satisfaction which suffices. That of trust, which prevents all murmuring at the dispensations of God, and which says, “I will trust, and not be afraid.” That of meekness, which says, “It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth good in His sight.” That of experience—the consciousness that God is carrying on His work within us, deepening the hold of that which is good, loosening more and more the power of that which is evil. Consciousness of growth in grace. C. 15-17. Ramah, the home of the prophet Samuel (1 Sam. 7:17), was very near the sepulchre of Rachel, as may be seen in 1 Sam 10:2. Samuel said to Saul, “When thou art departed from me this day, then thou shalt find two men by Rachel’s sepulchre in the border of Benjamin.” On the poetic conception in this passage, J. D. Michaelis makes this comment: “An exquisite figure. Rachel, during all her life ardently desirous of children, dying in childbirth and buried on the border of Benjamin, lifts her maternal head from her tomb, looks around on the wide waste of ruin, and sees not one of her children in all the land! She pours out her heart in most bitter tears; then God appears for her consolation.” It was indeed exceedingly natural for the prophet to think of Rachel who so loved her children as being inconsolable when she saw them all gone from their native land. Her sorrow doubtless represented the sorrow of many Hebrew mothers, then bewailing their dead and mourning the desolation of their long-loved country. To hearts so borne down with grief, the words of Divine consolation come as cold water to a thirsty soul. “Thy works shall be rewarded,” seems to mean: All thou hast borne of pain and grief, and all thou hast done with toil in thy love for Zion, shall find its due reward. Thy children shall return again; thine end is full of hope; a glorious future awaits thy sons and daughters. So timely and so precious are the words of God’s consolations. H. C. 15. A voice was heard in Ramah. Ramah was a city of Benjamin, near which Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, was buried; who is here, in a beautiful figure of poetry, represented as come forth out of her grave, and lamenting bitterly for the loss of her children, none of whom presented themselves to her view, being all either slain or gone into exile. The evangelist applies these words to Herod’s massacre of the infants at Bethlehem, and in its environs (Matt. 2:17, 18). Blayney. This figurative representation was, in a great measure, literally true, when Herod slew the infants at Bethlehem, not far from Ramah, and therefore Matthew tells us that this prophecy was fulfilled in that event; several other instances may be alleged where the sense of the prophecies which relates to the times of the Gospel is the interpretation that most exactly answers the natural and genuine import of the words. Lowth. It was the sad death of Rachel's which made her the typical mother in Israel. It was not an unclouded, merely prosperous life which could fitly have foreshadowed the lives of those by whom the promised seed was to come; and least of all of the virgin to whom it was said, "A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also." It was the wail of Rachel that poetical minds among the Jews heard from time to time mourning their national disasters—"Rachel weeping" for her children, when by captivity they were separated from their mother country, or when, by the sword of Herod, the mothers of Bethlehem were bereaved of their babes. But it was also observed that that which brought this anguish on the mothers of Bethlehem was the birth there of the last son of Israel, the blossom of this long-growing plant, suddenly born after a long and barren period, the son of Israel's right hand. Dods. 18. Having promised the return of the people from their exile, the prophet here speaks of the manner and spirit of this return. The essential point in it is, that the heart is touched. It begins with serious thought upon God's chastising hand under a conviction of personal stubbornness and guilt, and with some deep moving of heart toward return to God. With exquisite beauty and force the Lord here represents Himself as hearing the plaintive, solitary moans of Ephraim as he begins to think upon his ways and sets his face toward his long-forsaken God: "I have surely heard." Then let no sinner imagine that God cares not for his soul, and never takes note of his penitential tears. If only those tears betoken humiliation, confession, sorrow and shame for sin, then surely the eye and the heart of God are upon them, and those bemoanings of sin and folly will come up into his ear. An untamed and unbroken bullock fitly represents the stubborn, refractory spirit of the unhumbled sinner. He rebels against the judgments of the Lord, and thus compels the Lord to yet sterner blows. But sober thought comes at last, and with it an entire change in his views of himself and of his God. Is not his soul overwhelmed now with shame and grief? Oh, might he only turn to God thoroughly and acceptably! Nothing can more befit his case than this uplifting of his heart in prayer: "Turn Thou me; for Thou art the Lord my God." H. C. Ephraim says, "Thou didst correct me, and I received correction." Herein is one of the chief ends of suffering; even when deserved for sin it is not to give penal deserts and only satisfy justice, but rather to urge the wrongdoer to see his fault and repent. Chastisement leads to reflection, humbles, makes us feel our need and helplessness, shows the want of God and His consolations, and so inclines us to return to Him. To profit us, however, it must be rightly endured. We must receive correction, not harden our hearts against it. The Divine life in man begins with the turning round of the soul toward God. This "conversion" is the first step. It may not be suddenly discernible. It may not be indicated by any one epoch in our history. But it must take place. We have been wandering further and further from God. The most momentous step is the first step back to Him. We have to learn the necessity of this; to understand that while we remain in the old way, however pleasant it may be, it is leading us away from God, our mission, and our home; to see the importance of a change, a revolution, a regeneration, a new creation. Religion cannot begin with a sinful man in a mere improvement, much less in a natural development. He must turn round. God only can turn His children back to Himself. Ephraim prays, "Turn Thou me, and I will return." We lack the desire to return until He "from whom all good desires proceed" implants the earnest wish in our hearts. We have not the strength to return. Old habits of sin are fetters that bind us down to the old life. The will is corrupt, and therefore we cannot will aright. But God does move us to return and give us power to return. The Gospel is not only an invitation; it is the power of God. By His Spirit God gives us new birth and the free life of His children. Yet for this grace we must seek in faith and penitence. Ephraim prays that God will turn him. We cannot turn ourselves. God will not turn us against our will. If we seek His grace, He will turn us to Himself. Adeney. 19. Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto life, not to be repented of. It is not itself repentance, because this is a practical change; but it is a grand means of producing this change, and it arises from the view of sin in its true light, as contrariety to God, neglect of the highest good, ingratitude to the best Friend, rebellion against our Maker—the view of sin as sin, independent of its effects. This sorrow produces an abhorrence of sin; he who feels it will have no idea of retaining a single sin in his heart. The elements of repentance are found in the mourner's mind; he turns to the Lord in earnest, yields himself up to be guided by the Lord, and utters the language of Ephraim: "Surely after I was turned, I repented, I was ashamed, yea, confounded." R. Hall. 20. Is Ephraim my dear son? Rather the sense is, "Is not Ephraim My dear son? Is he not a pleasant child?" That is, Is he not one that I have set my affections upon, as a parent does upon a child in whom he delights? God proceeds to say, Ever since I have so severely reproved and chastised him, I have still retained for him a fatherly kindness; I am moved with compassion toward him, and will in due time pardon and receive him into favor. W. Loveth.—In all exigencies of His children He is overcome with their complaints, and cannot hold out against their moanings; He may, as Joseph, seem strange for a while, but cannot act that strangeness long; His heart moves and sounds to theirs, gives the echo to their griefs and groans. Is Ephraim a dear son? Oh, the unspeakable privilege to have Him for our Father, who is the Father of mercies and compassions, and those not barren, fruitless pityings, for He is withal the God of all consolations. Do not think that He can shut out a bleeding soul that comes to Him, and refuse to take, and to bind up, and heal, a broken heart that offers itself to Him, puts itself into His hand, and entreats His help. Doth He require pity of us, and doth He give it to us, and is it not infinitely more in Himself? Leighton. This inimitably precious passage closes fitly with the promise, "I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." Nothing can be more sure than God's mercy to the really humbled penitent. His infinite love forbids that mercy should fail to reach such a sinner. The showing of such mercy to such souls is the chief delight He finds in this revolted world. Oh, would sinners only believe this, then would they not turn from all sinning and press to His open arms to pour out their warm tears of sorrow for sin and of gratitude for such free and abundant pardon! H. C. 22. How long will thou go about? According to the first evangelical promise concerning "the seed of the woman," followed this prediction of the prophet, "The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man." That new creation of a man is therefore "new," and therefore "a creation," because wrought in a woman only, without a man, compassing a man. This interpretation is ancient, literal and clear. The words import a miraculous conception; and the ancient Jews acknowledged this sense, and applied it determinately to the Messiah. This prophecy is illustrated by that of Isaiah, chap. 7:14. Bp. Pearson. 23. The cities shall be habitations of justice; the mountain of Israel (so the whole land is called—Ps. 78:54), and especially Mount Zion, shall be a mountain of holiness. Justice toward men and holiness toward God must go together. Godliness and honesty are what God has joined, and let no man think to put them asunder, or to make one to atone for the want of the other. It is well with a people when they come out of trouble thus refined, and it is a sure presage of further happiness. 25. This is applicable to the spiritual blessings God has in store for all true penitents, for all that are just and holy; they shall be abundantly satisfied with Divine graces and comforts. In the love and favor of God the weary soul shall find rest, and the sorrowful soul joy. H. 26. If we look attentively at the contents of chaps. 30 and 31, we find very sufficient causes for the sweetness of the prophet's sleep. Jehovah makes one long announcement of favor, restoration and comfort. Hitherto when the prophet has had to listen to Jehovah, if there have been consolatory utterances, they have been mingled with denunciation and words of the most melancholy import. But now there is one unbroken stream of good tidings, and the effect is shown even in sleep. And if in sleep, how much more in waking hours! The whole round of the day becomes different when God looks favorably on the life. Sweetness of sleeping hours must come from all being right in waking hours. Now, with Jeremiah, as to his own personal life, all was right in waking hours, but with his nation all was wrong; and so through the day he went about seeing sin and foreseeing suffering, and at night his vivid imagination must often have kept him awake or peopled what broken sleep he got with the most terrible dreams. Bad men may sleep better than good ones, so long as there is nothing to awaken their selfish fears, and good men spend restless nights over the troubles of those in whom they are interested. Yet the restlessness must come from the failing to see the abiding goodness of God. Here, for a little, God drove every cloud from the sky of His servant, and showed him how heavenly brightness was a thing entirely above earthly confusions; and then His servant could get sweet sleep. And God will give to all that wait upon Him that quiet calm of the heart which is to our higher life what sweet sleep is to the body. It is God's will that our present life, with all its varied needs, should have all the refreshment He can give. Y. 29, 30. "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." There would have been truth in this saying had it been used only in reference to the mere natural consequences of their fathers' sins. In this sense their teeth were set on edge by the sour grapes their fathers had eaten. But the prophets pointed out the falsehood involved in the proverb as it was understood by the people. They showed that it was utterly false when applied to the spiritual relation in which each person stands in the judgment of Him who is no respecter of persons (Ezek. 18:2-4 sqq.). Clark. 30. "Every one shall die for his own iniquity." "Circumstances," "bodily organization," "temperament," "the maxims of society," "the conventionalities of the time"—all these things have something to do with shaping our single deeds and with influencing our character; but after we have made all allowances for these influences which affect me, let us ask the philosophers who bring them forward as diminishing or perhaps annihilating responsibility, "And what about that me which these things influence?" After all, let me remember that the deed is mine, and that every one of us shall, as Paul puts it, give account of himself before God. A. M. 31. The Old Testament itself, while it regards the decree of salvation revealed in it, and the kingdom of God founded thereupon, as eternal, as extending to all times and to all races of men, acknowledges that the manifestation of God's kingdom at that time was imperfect and temporary; for it points forward to a new revelation, in which that which is demanded by the letter of the law and signified by its ordinances shall become a reality through Divine communication of life; indeed, at the very time in which the old form of the theocracy was overthrown, it predicts the new eternal covenant which God would make with His people. O. 31-34. The remaining verses of this chapter have but one theme—the richer spiritual blessings of the Gospel age, surpassing those of the age before Christ came. They are presented under the phrase, "a new covenant." In the first covenant the Lord proposed to Israel to enter into relations of special alliance, service and trust with Himself, and prescribed minutely the terms and conditions of this relationship. He delivered them from their bondage in Egypt, and on the basis of this deliverance exhorted them to become His people, and promised on His part to become their God. They assented, and then He gave them His moral law of Ten Commandments, and next His ceremonial and civil institutes which were designed as means of religious culture and of protection specially against idolatry and generally against sin. As is indicated in our passage, those agencies were mainly external; the law itself was written on tables of stone. But the "new covenant" in its agencies for begetting and maintaining the religious life was to be inward and spiritual. The Lord would write it, not on stone tables, but on living hearts. There can be no doubt that this refers to the great, the special and distinguishing feature of the Gospel age—the gift of the Spirit. By this Divine agency the law of God is written on the very hearts of men: "They are all taught of God" (Isa. 54:13). They are taught the spiritual nature and bearings of the Divine law as never otherwise, and what is yet more, they not only understand it, but they love it, and joyfully obey it. They respond to its perceived claims with joyful promptness, and find their supreme delight in learning and doing the will of God. As here so tersely and beautifully expressed, the result of this new covenant and of this writing of God's law upon their heart is that the Lord becomes their God and they His people. God is theirs and they are His. All that God is, all that He can do for His creatures, He becomes to them and does for them. All that is involved in being His own—controlled and used by Him they become toward their God. These relations are exceedingly broad and intensely rich and blessed. God gives them His love and protection; and they give Him their heart's best love and the whole service of their life. As appears more fully in verse 34, this new covenant makes special account of the forgiveness of sin: "For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more." This forgiveness implies the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and shows that this sacrifice also was embraced in the new covenant. So that under this phrase must be included the great essential blessings of the Gospel dispensation—the gift of God's Son as teacher and sacrifice for sin; and the gift of God's Spirit as also a spiritual teacher and an agent of spiritual power on human hearts unto holiness. The scope of this passage puts this new covenant somewhat in contrast with the old. The new is not like the old. Its prominent features are different; its main agencies are new and peculiar. This must not be pressed too far, for it cannot imply that there was no forgiveness of sin under the old economy, or that there was no Holy Spirit there. But it does imply that the prominent religious agencies in that were external; were in the letter; made up largely of ritual forms; the law itself being written on stone; while under the new covenant the great religious agencies are the mission and death of Christ and the permanent work of the Divine Spirit on human hearts. H. C. The first covenant had been repeatedly and flagrantly broken. As a system of morals, it was perfect and without flaw; but human nature, being corrupt, was unable to keep its conditions (Rom. 7: 12). Universal corruption witnessed to the hopelessness of salvation by such a method. And yet the transgressions of men were not thereby excused. The essential depravity of man was revealed in a stronger and more definite character; but it already existed, and was an occasion of the Divine anger. As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews phrases it, God, "finding fault with them" (Heb. 8: 8), reminds Judah and Israel of His delivering mercy ("I took them by the hand," etc.), and declares His constancy and uninterrupted tenderness ("I was an husband," etc.). In strict justice the transgressors of the law had no claim to any consideration. They had incurred the righteous displeasure of God. But His merciful purpose was not laid aside. Another opportunity of salvation was afforded, and when the first covenant failed, a second covenant was designed of grander conception and more universal adaptation. The love of God affronted does not withdraw itself, but busies itself with new schemes to supplement human frailty and diminish the occasions and possibilities of failure. M. The old covenant starts with law; the new one springs out of life. Verse 33 gives one of the Old Testament ways of expressing the doctrine of regeneration. God writes the laws of spiritual life on the heart, just as He writes the laws of natural life on every natural germ; and then all the rest is a matter of unfolding, of growth, of encouragement, of culture. The old covenant was one long, exhaustive, thorough experiment by which the fact became clear that in the natural man there was nothing to unfold. The new covenant established within a very brief period that, given a new life-principle working within him, man is indeed a being of glorious capabilities. Y. The new covenant is a promise, is the assurance ance indeed, that God has taken the matter of our salvation into His own hands. It is all of grace; He gives everything; nothing is left to our own solitary effort. If we read over the words of the covenant as they are given here from first to last, there is not a single word about anything to be done by us. The whole covenant is not so much between man and His Maker as between Jehovah and man's Representative, the Lord Jesus Christ. The human side of the covenant has been already fulfilled by Jesus, and there remains nothing now but the covenant of giving, not the covenant of requirements. The whole covenant with regard to us, the people of God, now stands thus: "I will give this; I will bestow that; I will fulfil this promise; I will grant that favor." The old covenant said, "Do this, and thou shalt live." The new says, "I will do all." C. This covenant is a revelation of positive and uplifting truth in a time of negations and false refuges. It is as evangelical as any disclosure of Isaiah; it is indeed a foretelling of the regenerative outpouring of Pentecost, the New Testament set in the heart of and contrasted with the Old (Heb. 8). The new covenant is spiritual. It begins in the heart, and works from within outward. The law of life and of influence is as atomic as leaven and as voluntary as the choices of man. If any man will do the Divine will, he shall know it. Whosoever will may take the water of life freely. The terms of the new covenant are universal in their sweep. No welcoming soul is excluded from them or by them. They are so easy to understand that any child may apprehend them. Their criterion is not intellectual culture, but a willing heart enlightened by the Spirit of God. Forgiveness is perfectly free under these conditions; it has only to be sincerely accepted; and forgiveness is the first of these terms to be received. We are saved by faith, and faith is God's gift to us. The new covenant is sure, surer than the ordinances of earth or sky, as sure as the character of the unchangeable God. It is final and eternal, for the Lord of hosts has witnessed it. McPherson. The prophet was not commissioned to give them any new commandment, still less to admonish to strict observance of the old, but to bring the promise, which characteristically was to this effect, that God would give them a new heart to know Him that He was Jehovah. And that it was not in any wise connected with ignorance of the law, nor, on the other hand, expected in conjunction with a return to its merely outward ordinances, appears from this, that the great promise of "the latter days"—of the Messianic time of completion—was that Jehovah would then make a new covenant with Israel, not according to that when He brought them out of Egypt, but one in which He would put His law in their inward parts, and write it on their hearts. And most important as adding yet another element: then would one man no longer teach his neighbor, but all be taught directly of God. This indicates the existence of the old elements, while at the same time it points to an entire change in the future. Then would not only the old covenant and the old law, but even prophetism be superseded, or rather fulfilled. All this in the "latter days," or Messianic time, when, as Zechariah predicts, all ritual ordinances would merge in that universal consecration to God, in which "Holiness unto Jehovah," the inscription on the high priest's mitre, would, so to speak, be that on all vessels in common use in Jerusalem (14:20). But what does all this mean, when translated into the prose language of history, but the fulfilment of the law in its spiritual aspect, such as we find it described in the Epistles of Paul and, indeed, throughout the whole New Testament? But even this is not all. Jeremiah connects with the prediction of the new law, which was to be written on the heart when man's teaching would give place to universal knowledge of God, this promise deeply significant, even if in its then form it applied to Israel: "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (verse 34). Similarly Ezekiel, the priest-prophet, speaks of the time when God would sprinkle clean water upon them, and cleanse them from their filthiness, give them a new heart, put His Spirit within them, take away their stony heart, and make them to walk in His statutes (36:25-27). And that these promises would find their fulfilment in the time of the Messiah, the Son of David, is thus expressly stated by the same prophet in the following chapter of His predictions: "And David My servant shall be king over them, and they all shall have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments, and observe My statutes, and do them." And this is what Ezekiel emphatically designates as the covenant of peace, the everlasting covenant which God would make (37:24-26). Lastly, with this also agrees both the saying of Zechariah (13:1): "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness," and this of Micah (7:19, 20), that God would cast all their sins into the depths of the sea, and thus "perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham" which He had "sworn unto our fathers from the days of old." A. E. To what time or person the promises made here by Jeremiah and by Ezekiel (chaps. 34:23, 26; 36:26) related might be uncertain before Malachi prophesied; though they have internal marks which point to the Messiah. But Malachi, by his prophecy concerning "the Messenger of the covenant" (chap. 3:1), put it out of all doubt. This was to say, in other words, that Messiah should be the declarer, the publisher, the mediator of that better covenant, as Moses was of the old covenant; and that a law should be given by Him. Bp. Chandler. 33. Says Jeremiah, speaking of the "new covenant," or gracious relation between God and His people, and uttering the very words of God, "I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." This relation between God and His people is identical with His dwelling in them, as the gift of His Spirit, and He produces this relation by putting His law in their inward parts, and by writing it in their hearts. The law here evidently means a knowledge of God and His will. The writing it in their hearts is the work of the Spirit, giving inward effect to the truth; and the resulting relation between God and His people is all they need or can have of Him, save the sacred peace, the holy delight, the Divine communings which follow on that relation. J. S. Stone. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of 2 Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. Now at that time the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of 3 the guard, which was in the king of Judah's house. For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will 4 give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it; and Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes 5 shall behold his eyes; and he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there shall he be until I visit him, saith the LORD: though ye fight with the Chaldeans, ye shall not prosper? 6, 7 And Jeremiah said, The word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum thine uncle shall come unto thee, saying, Buy thee my field that is in Anathoth: for the right of redemption is thine to buy it. So Hanamel mine uncle's son came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of the LORD, and said unto me, Buy my field, I pray thee, that is in Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance is thine, and the redemption is thine; buy it for thyself. Then I knew that this 9 was the word of the LORD. And I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel mine 10 uncle's son, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. And I subscribed the deed, and sealed it, and called witnesses, and weighed him the money in the balances. 11 So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was sealed according to the law and 12 custom, and that which was open: and I delivered the deed of the purchase unto Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel mine uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews that 13, 14 sat in the court of the guard. And I charged Baruch before them, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, this deed of the purchase, both that which is sealed, and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel; that they 15 may continue many days. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall yet again be bought in this land. 16 Now after I had delivered the deed of the purchase unto Baruch the son of Neriah, I 17 prayed unto the LORD, saying, Ah, LORD GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and by thy stretched out arm; there is nothing too hard for thee: 18 which shewest mercy unto thousands, and recompenses the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: the great, the mighty God, the LORD of hosts is his name: 19 great in counsel, and mighty in work: whose eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men; to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings: 20 which didst set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, even unto this day, both in Israel 21 and among other men; and madest thee a name, as at this day; and didst bring forth thy people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, and with wonders, and with a strong hand, and 22 with a stretched out arm, and with great terror; and gavest them this land, which thou didst 23 swear to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey; and they came in, and possessed it; but they obeyed not thy voice, neither walked in thy law; they have done nothing of all that thou commandedst them to do: therefore thou hast caused all this evil to 24 come upon them: behold the mounts, they are come unto the city to take it; and the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans that fight against it, because of the sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence: and what thou hast spoken is come to pass; and, behold, thou 25 seest it. And thou hast said unto me, O LORD GOD, Buy thee the field for money, and call witnesses; whereas the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26, 27 Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me? 28 Therefore thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, 29 and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it: and the Chaldeans, that fight against this city, shall come and set this city on fire, and burn it, with the houses, upon whose roofs they have offered incense unto Baal, and poured out drink offerings 30 unto other gods, to provoke me to anger. For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have only done that which was evil in my sight from their youth: for the children of 31 Israel have only provoked me to anger with the work of their hands, saith the LORD. For this city hath been to me a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they built 32 it even unto this day; that I should remove it from before my face: because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And they have turned unto me the back, and not the face: and though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction. But they set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination; to cause Judah to sin. 36 And now therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning this city, whereof ye say, It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: Behold, I will gather them out of all the countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for ever; for the good of them, and of their children after them: and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. For thus saith the LORD: Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is desolate, without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds, and seal them, and call witnesses, in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the hill country, and in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South: for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the LORD. 32:6-8. The previous verses give us the circumstances of Jeremiah at the time of this transaction. It seems to have had no reference to the king, but was designed to encourage the pious portion of the people with the assurance that this pending captivity, though terrible, would yet have an end, and the land be yet repeopled. First, the Lord apprised Jeremiah that Hanameel would soon come and say, "Buy my field in Anathoth." Hence, when he came, Jeremiah knew this was from the Lord. The right of purchase was in the nearest male relative. For the purpose of giving permanence to the location of the several tribes, as well as to restrain the people from removing their residences, the right to alienate their land was carefully restricted by law. 14,15. An earthen vessel would preserve these documents even if they should be buried in the earth for safe keeping. It was supposed by Jerome that this was the prophet's intention. Verse 15 brings out on Divine authority the significance of this whole transaction. It was God's testimony that houses, fields and vineyards should be again possessed in that land. This land, though now doomed to ruin, would arise from its desolation and shine again in the beauty of Eden. Jeremiah's purchase evinced his enduring faith in God. Though he knew the city must be destroyed and the people driven into exile, yet he believed in God that they would yet return and rebuild this city. Moreover, since God Himself directed Jeremiah to do this thing, it became God's own promise and prophecy of restoration to their country. H. C. 14. It would seem, from verses 10, 11, that clay came to be used in Judah as a writing material, just as it was at Babylon or Nineveh, the inner clay record of a contract being covered with an outer coating, on which was inscribed an abstract of its contents, together with the names of the witnesses. Jeremiah's deed of purchase, moreover, was preserved in a jar, like the numerous clay deeds of the Egibi banking-firm, which existed at Babylon from the age of Nebuchadnezzar to that of Xerxes. These jars served the purpose of our modern safes. Sayce. In his desperate extremity, Hanameel urged his cousin Jeremiah to take off his hands a property that was exposed to such terrible risk. That ancestral farm had been in his family from the conquest of the Holy Land by Joshua. It had been apportioned to his line by God's own appointment, and registered in the great Doomsday Book of the Sacred Scriptures. It was the most precious of all the possessions of an Israelite, and was the last thing he would part with, losing his life itself rather than losing it; for it was this farm that was his charter to an inheritance in the Land of Promise, and his right to be numbered among God's covenant people. Notwithstanding these solemn sanctions, however, Hanameel wished to part with this significant property in a panic of hopelessness. In such a time of disaster, the property would be greatly depreciated in value. Jeremiah would not take the property at a depreciated value. He would give the full price for it. What a wonderful confidence he had in God's faithfulness to His promises! It seemed at the time as if the end of the covenant people had come; as if Jerusalem and the Land of Promise, with all their sacred institutions, were to pass away from them forever, and to become the possession of their enemies. Every prospect was gloomy in the extreme. There seemed no hope of deliverance. And yet Jeremiah, with prophetic foresight, looked beyond the impending calamity to happier times. And with all the forms and technicalities of legal conveyancing, as if the times were perfectly prosperous and assured, he purchased the field of his fathers from his timorous and faithless kinsman. And then in a splendid oration—half prayer and half exhortation—he proceeded to show that this private domestic transaction was an acted parable of wonderful and far-reaching significance; for the purchase of his own ancestral field was an earnest of a coming time when every field in the land should be possessed in the same way, and the people should again sit each man under his own vine and fig-tree. And is there not in our own religious experience in these days something that answers to the action of Jeremiah? We live in times of widespread unbelief. The enemies of the faith once delivered to the saints are assailing it with plausible arguments, drawn from the remarkable discoveries and theories of science. The treasure which our fathers have handed down to us has been thrown into the crucible of hostile criticism, and in the residuum we can find little of the precious ore. We are urged to part with much which past ages believed, and to which they attached the highest value; to give up a creed that is old and worn out and effete, and unsuitable to the times, that has no solid ground to rest upon, and that can yield us nothing but disappointment and despair. Shall we then in these troublous times, when so many are capitulating and giving way to the foe, part with our spiritual patrimony—with that which constitutes our dearest and most precious possession? No! We shall not act the faithless, cowardly part of Hanameel. We shall, like faithful Jeremiah, buy the truth and sell it not; for nothing that we could get in exchange would satisfy us. We shall hold fast the profession of our faith to the end; for no other faith—no scientific or philosophic creed—could make up to us for its loss. We shall keep, God helping us, that which our Saviour has bought for us with His own precious blood. We have succeeded to a great tradition of Divine truth, to which all the intervening ages have borne witness, whose grand principle is stability, and upon whose substance, however its forms and organizations may vary in adaptation to the requirements of each age, is stamped the seal of finality. Into that impregnable citadel we shall retire, and find there strength for faith and power to stand in the evil day. We know that the foundation standeth sure, and that the structure built upon it will abide the severest test, and will emerge only purer and more stable through the very ordeal of fire itself. We know that the present storm of doubt and unbelief will pass away, and there will be again faith upon the earth, and the spiritual atmosphere will be cleared of all its clouds, and the eternal verities of our faith will be made visible like a chain of Alpine peaks, stainless and serene in their untrodden snow, shining out against the infinite purity of the blue heavens, when the dark vapors that obscured them for a while have passed away. H. Macmillan. Prayer of Jeremiah, Verses 16–25. 16. I prayed unto the Lord. And what a prayer! for weight of matter, sublimity of expression, profound veneration, just conception, Divine unction, powerful pleading, and strength of faith. Historical without flatness, condensed without obscurity, confessing the greatest of crimes against the most righteous of Beings, without despairing of His mercy or presuming on His goodness; a confession that in fact acknowledges that God's justice should smite and destroy had not His infinite goodness said, I will pardon and spare. A. C. 17–25. In this prayer Jeremiah adores God and His infinite perfections, and gives Him the glory due to His name as the Creator, Upholder, and Benefactor of the whole creation, thereby owning His irresistible power, that He can do what He will, and His incontestable sovereignty, that He may do what He will (verses 17–19). When at any time we are perplexed about the particular methods and dispensations of Providence, it is good for us to satisfy ourselves with the doctrines of God's wisdom, power and goodness. God is the fountain of all being, power, life, motion and perfection; He made the heaven and the earth with His outstretched arm; and therefore who can control Him? Who dares contend with Him? With Him nothing is impossible, no difficulty insuperable. Nothing is too hard for Thee; with God are strength and wisdom sufficient to master all opposition. He is a God of boundless, bottomless mercy; that is His darling attribute; it is His goodness that is His glory; "Thou not only art kind, but Thou showest lovingkindness, not to a few, to here and there one, but to thousands, thousands of persons, thousands of generations." He is a God of impartial and inflexible justice. His reprieves are not pardons. He is a God of universal dominion and command; He is the great God, for He is the mighty God; and might among men makes them great. He is the Lord of hosts, of all hosts, that is His name, and He answers to His name, for all the hosts of heaven and earth, of men and angels, are at His beck. He contrives everything for the best, and effects everything as He contrived it; He is great in counsel, so vast are the reaches and so deep are the designs of His wisdom; and He is mighty in doing, according to the counsel of His will. Now such a God as this is not to be quarrelled with. His service is to be constantly adhered to, and all His disposals cheerfully acquiesced in. He acknowledges the universal cognizance God takes of all the actions of the children of men, and the unerring judgment He passes upon them (verse 19)—Thine eyes are open upon all the sons of men, wherever they are, beholding the evil and the good, and upon all their ways, both the course they take and every step they take, not as an unconcerned spectator, but as an observing Judge, to give every one according to his ways and according to his deserts, which are the fruit of his doings, for men shall find God as they are found of Him. He bewails the rebellions they had been guilty of against God, and the judgments God had brought upon them for these rebellions. God had done everything that He promised them to do, but they had done nothing of all that He commanded them to do (verse 23); they made no conscience of any of His laws, they walked not in them, paid no respect to any of His calls by His prophets for they obeyed not His voice. And therefore he owns that God was righteous in causing all this evil to come upon them. The city is besieged, is attacked by the sword without, is weakened and wasted by the famine and pestilence within (verse 24); it is given into their hands (verse 25). He compares the present state of Jerusalem with the Divine predictions, and finds that what God has spoken is come to pass. God had given them fair warning of it before; if they had regarded this the ruin had been prevented. He neither complains of God for what He had done, nor prescribes to God what He should do, but desires He would behold their case, and is pleased to think that He does behold it. H. 17. Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power.** God has computed the mutual perturbations of millions of suns, and planets, and comets and worlds, without number, through the ages that are passed, and throughout the ages which are yet to come, with perfect and absolute precision. The universe is in motion—system rising above system, cluster above cluster, nebula above nebula—all majestically sweeping around under the providence of God, who alone knows the end from the beginning, and before whose glory and power all intelligent things, whether in heaven or on earth, should bow with humility and awe. O. M. Mitchell. Think of the great natural forces revealed in our outlook on the structure and processes of the astronomical earth and heavens. The thunders and lightnings in their might, the winds and waves at their best, the uplift that sets mountains and continents on their high places, the fires that lap up forests and cities in an hour and turn the toughest metals into fluids and vapors, the forces implied in the annual output of vegetable life as well as in tornadoes, volcanoes and earthquakes—these are very impressive, but not so impressive as the forces implied in the rush of comets and planets, in the fierce disturbances seen in the photosphere of the sun, in the sweep of a system of millions of huge worlds at the rate of a million miles an hour, above all in the sum of the dynamics included in the universe system sweeping at about the same inconceivable rate around this centre of gravity. What a Power must He be who could originate, harness and keep well in hand such terrible forces! "The thunder of His power who can understand!"—how natural such a thought to a reasonable astronomer as he looks forth from his Uraniberg on the prodigious stellar movements! Burr. In the Infinite Mind there can be no distinction of past, present and future. He is from eternity to eternity, and in every stage of development He is no less present than were each stage a fresh creation. Nay, it is a fresh creation; for the Omnipotent Will must be incessant, eternal, else not omnipotent. He is no less the Immanent Cause than the First Cause. The universe subsists, the vast design unrolls, by His unceasing fiat. Let that fiat be for one instant withhold, the universe vanishes like the shadow of a dream. Law is but a provisional fiction of philosophy—the non-religious name for the modes of administration of an orderly universe. Law has a real meaning only for conscious law-keepers—for men and angels, not for suns and stars and oceans—for intelligent causes, not for unintelligent effects. There is no power of obedience in the inanimate objects to which we apply that term. Cut them adrift from the infinite, unceasing Will-Power which holds them in their courses—there would remain for them no law but inertia, which would either arrest them in eternal stillness, or hurl them into internecine chaos. A. P. Peabody. The Most Ancient still works before our eyes. Events succeed to-day in the same orders as in the past. We anticipate the events of to-morrow; we project thought into the coming ages; we see in imagination the great events which will transpire after our bodies sleep in the dust. We read beforehand the scroll of history destined to be unrolled when our race has passed away—when our earth is worn out—when our sun is exhausted—when the stars have decayed and new stars have been set in a new firmament. And yet the power of God works on—the power of the same God who was, and is to be, and always is. And it is this Eternal God, this tireless worker, this all-comprehending intelligence, who works to-day under our observation—in the springing grass, in the flowing tide, in the smoking mountain, in the silently rolling planet, in the flames of the burning suns—works in our homes, works in our hearts, stills our fears, sustains our hopes. Great God, and good! Is this, then, Thy creation—Thy immensity, Thy verdant fields, and do we ask why we should contemplate Thy works? Art Thou in reality here, and are these the proofs of Thy presence and the displays of Thy intelligence, and do we ask if we shall be profited by looking on Thy operations and learning what are Thy ways, what Thy disposition toward the works of Thy hands and the creatures of Thy love? A. Winchell. 26-29. The Lord answers. He has power adequate to any result that His wisdom deems it best to secure. The city will indeed, as is already indicated, be given up to the Chaldeans, and they will burn and utterly destroy it. Note here how the judgment points its index finger toward the sin which has brought it down. The Chaldean fires will burn those houses because on their roofs the infatuated people had offered incense to Baal. 30-35. These verses recite again those provocations of Israel which had aroused the indignation of the Lord. These points have often appeared in the course of Jeremiah's prophecies. Indeed they constitute their burden. 36-41. The strain of these promises is exceedingly rich. While they refer primarily to the restoration under Zerubbabel, yet their outlook is far beyond that event. Their spiritual fulness bears us onward into those latter days described so fully in the previous chapter. These great promises are remarkably coincident with those in chap. 31:33, 34: "They shall be My people, and I their God;" "I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever," with steadfast, unwavering consecration; "Will make an everlasting covenant with them," in contrast with that first covenant which they broke, and it was, therefore, transient; and "I will put my fear in their heart, that they shall not depart from Me." Fear of God in the Old Testament sense is true piety—not differing, therefore, from "writing God's law in the heart" (31:33). H. C.—God will renew His covenant with them, a covenant of grace, the blessings of which are spiritual, and such as will work good things in them to qualify them for the great things God intended to do for them. God will own them for His, and make over Himself to them to be theirs (verse 38)—They shall be My people. He will make them His by working in them all the characters and dispositions of His people, and then He will protect and guide and govern them as His people. And to make them truly, completely and eternally happy, I will be their God. They shall serve and worship God as theirs and cleave to Him only, and He will approve Himself theirs. All He is, all He has, shall be engaged and employed for their good. God will give them one heart and one way. In order to their walking in one way, He will give them one heart; as the heart is so will the way be, and both shall be one. The heart is then one when it is fully determined for God and entirely devoted to God; when the eye is single and God's glory alone aimed at; when our hearts are fixed, trusting in God, and we are uniform and universal in our obedience to Him; then the heart is one and the way one. H. 42-44. These verses serve to connect Jeremiah's recent purchase in Anathoth with this strain of glorious promise. That fact became the occasion of these promises. It was done to be a historic memorial of God's faithfulness to the believing Jews of those times. They might bear the memory of it with them into their captivity, and be assured that the land from which they were then driven is still the Lord's land, where promise and prophecy are still to have a fulfilment, glorious to the love and faithfulness of their God. H. C. The story of Jeremiah will not be lost upon us if it teaches us the duty of submission to the will of God. It was not the yoke of Babylon that was at fault in the days of Jeremiah, so much as the yoke of unforsaken sin; it was not by turning to Egypt for help that Judah could be saved, but by turning to the God whom they had forsaken; let them bow the neck to His law and accept His rule, and all would be well. But the old struggle continually repeats itself. Whose will is to be supreme—the will of God or the will of man? All spiritual conflict is practically the battle of the wills; and only in a full and unreserved acceptance of the Divine will can we find happiness and peace. E. Bayley. JERUSALEM DESTROYED AND JUDAH TAKEN TO CAPTIVITY IN BABYLON. TEMPLE FURNITURE AND PARTS OF THE STRUCTURE CARRIED AWAY. BRIEF REFLECTIONS OF THE CHRONICLER. JEREMIAH PROTECTED AND EBED-MELECH DELIVERED. 33:1 MORROVER the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he 2 was yet shut up in the court of the guard, saying, Thus saith the LORD that doeth it, the 3 LORD that formeth it to establish it; the LORD is his name: Call unto me, and I will answer 4 thee, and will shew thee great things, and difficult, which thou knowest not. For thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down to make a defence against the mounts, and against 5 the sword: They come to fight with the Chaldeans, but it is to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in mine anger and in my fury, and for all whose wickedness I have 6 hid my face from this city. Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them; 7 and I will reveal unto them abundance of peace and truth. And I will cause the captivity of 8 Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will par- don all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, and whereby they have trans- 9 gressed against me. And this city shall be to me for a name of joy, for a praise and for a glory, before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them, and shall 10 fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I procure unto it. Thus saith the LORD: Yet again there shall be heard in this place, whereof ye say, It is waste, without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, 11 without man and without inhabitant and without beast, the voice of joy and the voice of glad- ness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that say, Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his mercy endureth for ever; and of them that bring sacrifices of thanksgiving into the house of the LORD. For I will cause the captivity 12 of the land to return as at the first, saith the LORD. Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Yet again shall there be in this place, which is waste, without man and without beast, and in all the 13 cities thereof, an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the LORD. 14 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good word which I have 15 spoken concerning the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall 16 execute judgement and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name whereby she shall be called, The LORD is 17 our righteousness. For thus saith the LORD: David shall never want a man to sit upon the 18 throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to 19 offer burnt offerings, and to burn oblations, and to do sacrifice continually. And the word 20 of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD: If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, so that there should not be day and night in 21 their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should 22 not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured; so will I mul- 23 tiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. And the word of 24 the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD did choose, he hath cast them off? thus do they de- 25 spise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith the LORD: If my covenant of day and night stand not, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven 26 and earth; then will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and will have mercy on them. Chap. 33. God reveals His gracious purpose of healing the wounds of Jerusalem, restoring the captivity of Judah, forgiving their sins, and distinguishing them with such blessings as to strike the astonished nations with fear and trembling (verses 1-9). He foretells that the land, whose desolation they deplored, should again flourish with multitudes, both of men and cattle (verses 10-13). He confirms His former promise of establishing a kingdom of righteousness in a branch of the house of David, and rendering it perpetual, together with the priesthood of the sons of Levi (verses 14-18). He declares His covenant in this respect with David and the Levites, to be as sure as the covenant of day and night (verses 19-22). And, to remove the reproach of having cast off those families, whom He had once distinguished by His choice, He renews His protestations of infallibly restoring the seed of Jacob, and of appointing the seed of David to rule over them forever (verse 23), to the end. Blayney. The city was at this time besieged, and tottering to its fall. This prospective ruin of the city and Temple chilled the hearts of those who would fain hold fast to the promises of the Lord, and hence became a sore temptation to despondency and even despair. To reassure their sinking faith, these reiterated promises are given here in the very jaws of national ruin. H. C. Verses 1-13 may be characterized as God's promise to Judah and Israel of ultimate return and restoration. Uttered just before the final captivity, the words were designed for the comfort of devout Jews. Through all the long dreary history there had always been true worshippers, for whose sake, in great part, God had forborne with His guilty people. The fervent intercession of these faithful ones, like that of Elijah, had always availed much, even in the darkest crises of Israel's guilt. And now to these devout and loyal souls, just about to be tried with the fire of utter destruction, God utters these words of hope by Jeremiah. To such as were to be taken captive to Babylon, and to their faithful successors who should arise in the generations of the captivity, He utters these cheering predictions. For the comfort, the faith, patience and hope of all the true-hearted and devout throughout the sad years of exile by the rivers of Babylon, when the throne of David was vacant; when Judah as well as Israel was desolate of people; when there was neither capital nor Temple nor priesthood; when all evidences of their nationality should cease to exist, Jeremiah was here inspired, while announcing the great calamity, to promise a return from exile, and the rebuilding of the Jewish state. B. 1. Jeremiah had resolutely witnessed to the truth, and now he was confined in the king's prison in order to his being silenced. But so far from the Divine communications being less frequent, they were more so, and, if possible, more weighty and important. The word of the Lord came to him the second time, and a gracious revelation of God's power and willingness to bless. M. 2, 3. The basis of prayer; the clear invitation and explicit promise; and the specific results here pledged. In the sublime self-assertion of His creative, formative and sustaining might, and in the simple utterance of His covenant name, God invites His troubled people to find evidence of His ability to answer to their utmost call. In this is found the single basis of all prayer; His sovereign might and control in providence, and His covenant mercy toward men. In words of invitation so clear that they cannot be misapprehended, so personal and direct that their summoning force cannot be avoided, He challenges their faith to test His power and willingness, even in respect to issues vast as those involved in this calamity. And we are further to note, that His promise to give in response to their call is absolutely without qualification. Like every other Divine promise in the Old and New Testament, that of the answer to prayer is conditioned upon a right spirit and a trusting heart. The prayer of such a spirit God will assuredly answer; either with that gift which is asked or with a better blessing. What were the great and mighty things promised as the specific result of their call, we learn in the verses following. In these words God discloses the grand results of future Jewish history, involving the coming of Messiah. This disclosure He makes to the praying, trusting and hoping Israelites, that in the days of darkness they might be encouraged to continue their trust and prayer and hope. And not less to faithful believers to-day is this God's assurance concerning themselves, their households and the Church of Christ. To every faithful, trusting soul to-day, as in every day of all the past, God's invitation and promise, His declaration of ability and willingness to do great things in response to fervent supplication, still finds expression and fulfilment. B. Asking, on the one side, and giving in answer to that asking, on the other, would seem to be nearly as unmistakable an account of a direct transaction as speech is capable of composing. Especially would it appear to stand clear of all possible ambiguity, when we remember that the whole Revelation, from end to end of its records, offers no hint of any different theory; that it was precisely in this spirit, and with this understanding, that every biblical believer prayed, from Adam in Eden to John in Patmos—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all patriarchs speaking to Jehovah, and answered by Him; Moses, Samuel, Elijah and the whole line of valiant, praying prophets; David, whose devotions have been the common language of worship through both dispensations, tions, and bear to-day fresher marks of perpetuity than when his own tears fell upon the lines he wrote—whose petitions were accounted worthy to be taken upon the lips of the Redeemer Himself amid the tortures of the crucifixion; the disciples, the mother, evangelists, apostles—all, with undivided agreement, asking the Father for what their soul craved, and receiving at God's invisible hand, immediately, blessings that, but for such asking, could not have been bestowed. The witnesses are explicit. There are placed before us two parties. One is just as literally and exactly a person as the other; the Divine side of the mutual transaction involving precisely the same attributes of personality as the human—no hint to the contrary; and—mark especially—the fact of conscious request and conscious compliance every way as distinct—the difference between faith and sense being of course granted—as if a hand were visibly stretched out on one side open, and were visibly filled from the other. F. D. H. He is told to pray for great things. The great and mighty things which it pleased the Lord to bestow and Jeremiah to receive related to the deliverance of the people of God from their future captivity, and the restoration of God's goodness to them. You observe that God requires to be asked for the great and mighty things of His grace before He bestows them. G. Bowen. To pray with the firm persuasion that God hears, and will, in His own time and way, answer, but to require no sensible impressions upon the mind at the time, in reply, is to ask in faith. But to make our comfort and the performance of our duty depend on the response which we may seem to receive is not the highest exercise of love to God or trust in Him. Communion with Christ does not require responsive influences upon our hearts in order to be real. N. Adams.—The answer may be delayed to test our faith, to sift our motives, to prepare us for the right reception of the answer; but let us never doubt that whatsoever we ask in Christ's name will be granted unto us. And this faith, nothing wavering, is itself the test of the sincerity of our heart, and the Christ-conformed character of our petitions. A. Saphir. Call unto Me and I will answer, saith the Lord. Find in this explicit Divine promise an inspired Old Testament commentary directly responsive to Paul's sublime ascription (Eph. 3: 20), "to Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." 4-9. God's pledge of restoration and rebuilding after captivity.** Verses 4 and 5 vividly depict the ruin and desolation of city and nation. "Houses thrown down" and the debris "filled with the dead bodies of men," slain at the Chaldeans' hands, yet according to Jehovah's purpose, in punishment of Judah's wickedness—these broken homes and this decimation by the sword were to be followed by the long banishment into a strange land. This was the great calamity, then near at hand, which the prophet announced. But over against this was he bidden to promise a return from exile and a restoration to their home-land. Under a figure of the healing of one long and sorely diseased, God declares that He will at length bring to the nation health and cure. Then without figure He explicitly affirms that He will bring back Judah and Israel from captivity and build them again. Then their iniquities shall be pardoned and they shall be cleansed. And their name shall be "a joy, a praise, and an honor before all the nations of the earth;" who shall thus be taught the wonderful loving-kindness of Jehovah to men. In verses 10-13 the same glorious and rich promises continue to find utterance—promises oft repeated by other prophets, with larger particulars. Verses 14-18 intimate that only a partial and inconsiderable fulfilment of these grand and far-reaching pledges was realized upon the return from the seventy years of captivity, and onward until the coming of Christ. Around Him all these Old Testament promises cluster; to His person and work they point; in the establishment of His kingdom they are centred and are completely fulfilled. B. 6. The Divine treatment of sin.** "Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them." Here, as in so many other Scriptures, the moral, political, social, and spiritual recovery of Israel is spoken of under the image of bodily healing. For all healings of the body are types and pledges of the better healing. If God so cares for the body, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the tomb, shall He not care for the soul, which is eternal? This verse 6 is a promise that the Divine treatment of sin shall be effectual. The Lord is Jehovah-rophi. He heals them that have need of healing. C. Sin is man's self-induced disease, unnatural, and self-incurable. Righteousness or rightness is wholeness, wholth, or health, which is the meaning of the Old Testament peace. This is wrought in the soul by God, and is the restoration of its nature as made originally in His image. This "health and cure" He is always able, willing, and glad to impart to those humble, repentant souls that trust in and call upon Him. B. 10,11. To the expressions common in this prophet to denote the peace and happiness of the people, are added here words of thanksgiving and praise to God. The people will not only be full of joy; they will also remember the great Giver of all their blessings with overflowing soul, adoring His goodness and mercy that endure forever. This indicates the richest spiritual blessings—the work of the Spirit of God upon their heart, and not merely the accumulation of worldly good. H. C. 11. The Lord is good, His mercy endureth forever.** Goodness belongs to nature and to Providence. It presides over all the resources of creation—opens the mine, and covers the field, and adorns the garden—pours out daily the treasures of its full horn into the hands of men. What goodness giveth, they gather. But Mercy belongs especially to the gospel; she is seen walking along the paths of patriarchs, prophets, and priests—in the tabernacle and in the temple, in worship and in teaching—giving them hints about the seed of the woman, and the sceptre of Israel, and the star of Jacob, and the Man of Sorrows, and the Lamb slain, and the fountain opened; and then, after this typical and prophetic course, Mercy shows us, at Bethlehem, Christ's manger and cradle; and then, at Calvary, reveals the cross under which she stands. Stoughton. Sacrifices of thanksgiving. Intermixed with searching and inspired doctrines and ordinances of religious sacrifice, we find in the Bible such expressions as the "sacrifices of thanksgiving," the "sacrifices of praise," and "sacrifices of joy." If there is any paradox, it clearly belongs to that grand paradox which runs all through the Gospel, and its transforming work; the "service that is perfect freedom;" "as poor yet making many rich;" "having nothing, yet possessing all things." That is, if the Church would fill out her rightful office, restore the waste places, and extend the kingdom of Christ in the world, she must restore first the Divine plan of faith working by love which God gave her; she must reaffirm the doctrine of stated, systematic and adequate sacrifices for that holy end; she must not cheat her children with any delusive dream of putting the cloak of Christ's righteousness on themselves or others so long as the thick undergarment of their own selfishness and avarice clings close to them and is not rent apart and torn off; she must teach and train every child she baptizes to keep his eyes, his hands, his feet, and all his powers ever ready and intent to seek out and to occupy the occasions of self-denial for her honor and the glory of her crucified Head; and then it will come about, as the promises of God are true, under the wonder-working law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that a love for this kind of service will grow up, and a sacred passion for the Church's honor will be kindled, such as will cast out the bondage of constraint, enthroning the gracious and royal law which is "ready to give and glad to distribute," making of each disciple the "cheerful giver" whom the Lord loves. F. D. H. 12. 13. In these verses, when the prophet would set forth the blessed life that the restored people should enjoy, he drew a picture, not of city, but of country life; not of hard, exacting toil, but of healthful, peaceful occupation—the pastoral life of a quiet, beautiful land. It is a symbol of all healthful employ, and such employ shall be a further feature in the blessedness that is to be. C.—As a quiet pastoral life filled their highest ideal of peace, repose, and abundance—a fact due somewhat to the examples of the patriarchs and of David—so here this state of spiritual enjoyment and peace is clothed in these images. The contrast is made strong; in this very place, doomed to be so desolate as to have in it neither man nor any of his domestic animals—here shall yet be the dwellings of shepherds, with their flocks reposing most quietly. The last clause of verse 13 refers to the usual mode of counting their flocks—viz., causing them to pass under the hand of one who should number them. H. C. 14. I will perform that good thing which I have promised. The coming of the Messiah was that good thing which God had promised, which is therefore called in a peculiar manner, "The promise made unto the fathers" (Acts 13: 32), as being the greatest of all the promises, and that in which all the rest were comprehended. Bp. Beveridge. 15. The righteous Scion of David. Here is a great leading prediction, which enables us to interpret as to the time and mode in which the rest of the glorious predictions connected with it were to be fulfilled. We know full well who this righteous Scion was, and when we look at His work, we can translate all the figurative language into spiritual realities. We no longer go looking for Israel and Jerusalem in any mere local way, and the vineyards and cornlands and pastures of the restored people of God we understand to be only feeble indications of the spiritual satisfactions coming through Christ. This righteous Scion springs from David. According to the flesh, He is connected with a name suggestive of past days of prosperity and glory. David himself is emphatically to be reckoned as a righteous stock. That he fell into grievous backslidings is not to be denied; but we know his aspirations, his sighings and struggling after conformity with the law of God. Y. 15-18. The pith of the promise was that the Lord would bring forth that glorious Scion from the stock of David, His greater son, the Messiah, and make Him king forever on His throne over all the people of the Lord. But this promise affirms also the perpetual succession of the Levitical priesthood: "Neither shall the priests the Levites ever want a man before Me to offer burnt-offering," etc. Zechariah and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews are authorized expounders of this remarkable prophecy. Zechariah taught (chap. 3) that after the captivity the priesthood was to be restored in its purity and beauty, and that the high-priest and his associates were men of typical significance, foreshadowing God's "servant, the Branch," who will "take away the iniquity of that land in one day"—thus "by one offering perfecting forever them that are sanctified" (Heb. 10: 14). Zechariah also taught in chap. 4, that through the priesthood the Lord would pour the oil of His grace upon His people; and in chap. 6, that the Branch (Messiah) should "build the temple of the Lord" and "be a priest upon His throne"—i.e., be both king and priest, thus uniting in Himself the functions of David and of Aaron. The Epistle to the Hebrews elaborates the great idea that Jesus Christ, after He had once offered a sacrifice for sins as the great High Priest of His people, "forever sat down at the right hand of God"—"a great High-Priest passed through the heavens," "ever living to make intercession for them" (Heb. 10: 12; 4: 14; 7: 25, etc.). So complete are the appliances for the salvation of lost men. Well may the great apostle say, "And ye are complete in Him" (Col. 2: 10). In Him every want of their souls is met. H. C. 17. David shall never want a man. So long as Israel remained a kingdom, those of the line of David ruled over it; when that failed, Christ came in the flesh, who ruleth, and shall rule, over the Israel of God forever. Poole.—In a spiritual sense, the kingdom of Christ, the Son of David, has been for some time established over those whom the Apostle calls "the Israel of God" (Gal. 6: 16), and "the children of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7); meaning thereby all true believers, whether of the Jews or of the Gentiles. And in the Church of Christ there hath been a constant and uninterrupted succession of persons appointed to perform the public offices of religion in the room of, although not taken out of the family of the priests, the Levites. And the perpetuity of this kingdom and this priesthood is, in the opinion of many learned expositors, looked upon as a full and authentic completion of the intention of this prophecy. Blayney. 17, 18. King and priest in perpetuity. The declarations of these verses come by a natural association after the declaration of His advent who is the righteous Scion of David. Kingship and priesthood in perpetuity—that is the general assurance; but what a difference between the assurance looked at from the point of view given by Jeremiah’s time and the point of view given by ours! We look back on the achievements of history, and then see how much more a prediction means than anything that could have been supposed possible at the time it was spoken. The way in which the perpetuity is manifested. The king is one; the priest is one. Looking back, we are made to see this clearly. “Of His reign there shall be no end,” says Gabriel to Mary. Whatever wisdom, power, and beneficence are in Jesus, are in perpetual exercise. Death, which ends the authority of purely human kings, only enlarged and deepened the authority of Jesus. He not only claims perpetuity for His demands, but we have ample reason now to say that the claim is admitted. And as to priesthood, what more need be said than make a reference to the expositions of the priesthood of Jesus made in the Epistle to the Hebrews? It is the priesthood forever, according to the order of Melchisedec. What an abidingly helpful thought it should be that we look to a Mediator ever active in sympathy with human wants, ever understanding them, knowing them indeed far better that the subjects of them! All the externalities are gone—sacrifices of beasts, furnishings of the holy place, symbolic garments of the priests, symbolic ordinances of service; but the reality remains and must remain in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. The deepest evils of human life, the evils that cause all others, are swept away by the priesthood of Jesus. And so also the greatest goods of human life, those that are seminal and full of energy toward the production of other goods, come through the same priesthood. Compared with the possibilities of the future, the predictions of these verses are, indeed, only at the beginning of their fulfilment. Y. 17-26. Three of God’s covenants—that of royalty with David and his seed, that of the priesthood with Aaron and his seed, and that of peculiarity with Abraham and his seed—seemed to have been all broken and lost while the Captivity hasted; but it is here promised that, notwithstanding that interruption and discontinuance for a time, they shall all three take place again, and the true intents and meaning of them all shall be abundantly answered in the New Testament blessings, typified by those conferred on the Jews after their return out of captivity. H. 19-22. Here, as in chap. 31:35-37, the richest promises are confirmed by the strongest assurances. The Lord’s covenant of the day and of the night (see Gen. 1 and Ps. 136:8, 9), the Divine constitution of nature whereby the succession of day and night will continue while the world shall stand, is beautifully appropriated as the symbol and the pledge of this never-failing promise respecting the eternal kingship and priesthood of the Messiah. H. C. The permanence of nature is an assurance of the permanence of grace. The same God rules in the physical and spiritual spheres. In the one He is not capricious and uncertain. Why should we fear His being so in the other? Night, tempest, winter—things dark and wild—do not set aside the eternal ordinances of beneficent nature. The blue sky survives the black cloud that hides it for a season only to reveal it the more clearly after shedding itself in thunder-showers. Why, then, should we think that the heavenly grace of God’s love should be less enduring? If the ordinances of nature fail, we may expect the same of the covenant of grace; but not till then, since both depend on the same Divine endurance. The successions of nature are pledges of the successions of grace. Nature is ever changing, though changing according to uniform laws. In spiritual experience we meet with change. Neither of God’s kingdoms is a Chinese empire. Progress marks both; and progress means change. But the change, though it alters events, does not alter principles; it only develops them to fuller exercise. Do the changes of life make us fear the loss of God’s blessing? Let us remember that the changes in nature do not upset its laws. Our experience varies, but God’s love is changeless. He shows this love, however, rather by a succession of blessings than by maintaining present blessings unaltered. So is it in nature—day and ##### Manumission and Re-enslavement of Servants. 34: 1 THE word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth that were under his dominion, and all the peoples, fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying: 2 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Go, and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, 3 and he shall burn it with fire: and thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, 4 and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon. Yet hear the word of the LORD, O Zedekiah king of Judah: thus saith the LORD concerning thee, Thou 5 shalt not die by the sword; thou shalt die in peace; and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee, so shall they make a burning for thee; and they shall 6 lament thee, saying, Ah lord! for I have spoken the word, saith the LORD. Then Jeremiah 7 the prophet spake all these words unto Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem, when the king of Babylon's army fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these alone remained of the cities of Judah as fenced cities. 8 The word that came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, after that the king Zedekiah had made 9 a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them; that every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being an Hebrew or an Hebrew, go free; that none should serve himself of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother: 10 and all the princes and all the people obeyed, which had entered into the covenant, that every one should let his manservant, and every one his maidservant, go free, that none should serve 11 themselves of them any more; they obeyed, and let them go: but afterwards they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought 12 them into subjection for servants and for handmaids: therefore the word of the LORD came 13 to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of 14 the house of bondage, saying, At the end of seven years ye shall let go every man his brother that is an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee, and hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear. 15 And ye were now turned, and had done that which is right in mine eyes, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which 16 is called by my name: but ye turned and profaned my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom ye had let go free at their pleasure, to return; and 17 ye brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. Therefore thus saith the LORD: Ye have not hearkened unto me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbour; behold, I proclaim unto you a liberty, saith the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be tossed to 18 and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth. And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before 19 me, when they cut the calf in twain and passed between the parts thereof; the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the 20 land, which passed between the parts of the calf; I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life; and their dead bodies shall be 21 for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth. And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which are gone up from 22 you. Behold, I will command, saith the LORD, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant. This chapter contains two distinct portions. This first part (verses 1-7) predicts the capture of the city and of its king by the Chaldeans; specifies distinctly that King Zedekiah would personally be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon, and would see him face to face, yet would not die by the sword, and would have at his death the usual honors of the earlier Jewish kings. This passage closely resembles chap. 32: 3, 5, and, therefore, probably bears the same date, and is essentially the same message. The second portion gives the history of a remarkable manumission of Hebrew servants and their subjection again to servitude. King Zedekiah made a covenant with all the people, and with the princes, to set free their Hebrew servants and handmaids. They did so; but subsequently forced them all back into bondage. The Lord denounced judgments upon them for this sin. Verses 21, 22, taken in connection with other known facts in their history, give us a clew to the circumstances under which both this manumission and the subsequent re-enslavement took place. The history (especially chap. 37) shows that after the Chaldeans had commenced the siege of Jerusalem, the Egyptians sent forward an army to aid their Jewish friends, and to act against the Chaldeans; that the latter, hearing of their approach, raised the siege and marched against the Egyptian army; but subsequently, after driving them back, returned to the siege and captured the city. In God's threatening of judgment on Jerusalem for re-enslaving her manumitted servants, He says (chap. 34: 21, 22): "I will give Zedekiah and his princes into the hand of the king of Babylon's army which are gone up from you." Also, "Behold, I will command, saith the Lord, and cause them to return to this city, and they shall fight against it and take it." Hence this threatened judgment, recorded in the latter portion of the chapter, was revealed to the prophet before the Chaldeans resumed the siege. And, moreover, there can be no doubt that this general manumission was made after the siege of the city had commenced, or, at least, after it had become morally certain; and that the measure was prudential, its objects being probably twofold—viz., to propitiate the favor of God, and to gain the good-will and the more effective service of the freedmen in defence of the city. Then, upon the withdrawal of the Chaldean forces, the fears of the people subsided, and consequently they re-enslaved their freedmen and brought on themselves the curse of the Almighty, who loves to show Himself the God and Father of the oppressed. H. C. 4, 5. "Thou shalt not die by the sword." He did not die by the sword, he did not fall in battle. "But thou shalt die in peace." He did die in peace; he expired neither on the rack nor on the scaffold; was neither strangled nor poisoned—no unusual fate of captive kings; he died peaceably in his bed, though that bed was in a prison. "And with the burnings of thy fathers shall they burn odors for thee." It cannot be proved from history that this part of the prophecy was accomplished, though the probability is that it was so; the probability is grounded on these two reasons: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, to say nothing of other Jews, were men of great authority in the court of the king of Babylon before and after the commencement of the imprisonment of Zedekiah; and Daniel continued in power till the subversion of the kingdom of Babylon by Cyrus. Now it seems very probable that Daniel and the other Jews would have both inclination to request, and influence enough with the king of Babylon to obtain, permission to bury their deceased prince, Zedekiah, after the manner of his fathers. But if there had been no Jews at Babylon of consequence enough to make such a request, still it is probable that the king of Babylon would have ordered the Jews to bury and lament their king after the manner of their country. Bp. Watson.—Comparing what is said here of Zedekiah's death with what is said of Jehoiakim (chap. 22:18, 19), the former is decidedly the more honored and the less despicable. Jehoiakim stands on the page of history supremely wicked, mean and despised. Zedekiah had some to mourn his death. 7. Lachish and Azekah were strong cities, and, like Jerusalem, required to be reduced by siege. They were in the southwest part of Judah. Lachish withstood Sennacherib in the times of Hezekiah. The history (2 Chron. 32:9) states that "he laid siege against it with all his power," and even remained himself to direct the operations there, while he sent his subordinate officers to Jerusalem. This celebrated siege is supposed by Layard to be depicted on certain slabs disinterred from the ruins of Nineveh. H. C. 8. To proclaim liberty unto them. By the law of Moses, the Israelites were not allowed to detain their brethren of the Hebrew race in perpetual bondage, but were required to let them go free after having served six years. This law had fallen into disuse, but King Zedekiah, upon the approach of the Chaldean army, whether from religious motives or a political view to employ the men who were set free in the service of the war, engaged the people to act conformably to the law; and they released their brethren accordingly. But no sooner were their fears abated by the retreat of the Chaldeans than, in defiance of every principle of religion, honor and humanity, they imposed the yoke of servitude anew upon those unhappy persons (verse 11). Blayney. 14. Hebrews of either sex, compelled by the necessities of subsistence to attach themselves to the household of some one who had wealth enough to give them employment and bread, were to have the opportunity after six years' service of becoming free. The tone of Lev. 25 shows that such cases were often the result of debt and misfortune, from which a man could not extricate himself so as to gain subsistence in any other way. He must anticipate his earnings by selling his labor in advance. These Hebrew statutes originated in God's regard for the interests and rights of the poor. Hence He guarded and enforced them with a vigilance and beneficence worthy of an infinite Father. These statutes had fallen into neglect. For many years past the people had not hearkened to the voice of God in this matter. How long they had been disregarded does not appear from the history; probably during the administration of all their apostate kings. 15,16. In this recital of the case by the Lord Himself He shows that they had done right in releasing their servants according to the law, that they had made that covenant in His own Temple and under the most solemn religious sanctions; and that in turning back to violate this covenant they had polluted the very name of Jehovah their God. The original word used here implies that they had recklessly abused and contemned that sacred name. H. C.—As soon as ever they let their servants go free, God let them go free. When they began to think themselves safe from the besiegers, they made their servants come back into subjection to them (verse 11, and again verse 16). This was a great abuse to their servants, to whom servitude would be more irksome after they had had some taste of the pleasures of liberty. It was a great shame to themselves, that they could not keep in a good mind when they were in it. But it was especially an affront to God; in doing this they polluted His name (verse 16). It was a contempt of the command He had given them, as if that were of no force at all, but they might either keep it, or break it, as they thought fit. It was a contempt of the covenant they had made with Him, and of that wrath which they had imprecated on themselves, in case they should break that covenant. H. 17. The terms of the threatening correspond to the terms which express the sin. As the people would not proclaim liberty to their oppressed brethren, God would proclaim liberty to the sword, the pestilence, and the famine to do their work of destruction upon the guilty oppressors. This form of statement serves to bind together the punishment and the sin, so that the form of announcing the punishment should perpetually remind them of the sin for which it was sent. Hence, when the people saw and felt the sword, the pestilence, and the famine, coming down upon themselves with the fullest liberty and with no restraint, they would remember that they had given no liberty to the poor servants whom the Lord bade them set free. When the oppressed poor had none among the kings and great men of the earth to plead their cause and avenge their wrongs, the Lord Almighty came down and the thing was done! done to purpose; done with terrible vengeance! H. C. 22. I will cause them to return. They did return, reinvested the city, and after an obstinate defence took it, plundered it, and burned it to the ground, taking captives Zedekiah and his princes. A. C. night, summer and winter, alternate. To-day's grace will not last for to-morrow; but new grace will be bestowed then if we seek it. The succession does not fail in nature, nor will it in grace. Adeney. 26. Christ is that seed of David that is to be perpetual Dictator to the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and as this people shall never want such a king, so this king shall never want such a people. Christianity shall continue in the dominion of Christ, and the subjection of Christians to Him, till day and night come to an end. And as a pledge of this, that promise is again repeated, I will cause their captivity to return; and, having brought them back, I will have mercy on them. Whom this promise refers to appears Gal. 6:16, where all that walk according to the Gospel rule are made to be the Israel of God, on whom peace and mercy shall be. H. 1. THE word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD in the days of Jehoiakim the son of 2 Josiah, king of Judah, saying, Go unto the house of the Rechabites, and speak unto them, and bring them into the house of the LORD, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to 3 drink. Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, and his brethren, 4 and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites; and I brought them into the house of the LORD, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes, which was above the chamber of 5 Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door: and I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites bowls full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them, Drink 6 ye wine. But they said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons, for 7 ever: neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any: but all your days ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days in the land wherein ye 8 sojourn. And we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our father in all that he charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daughters; 9, 10 nor to build houses for us to dwell in: neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor seed: but we have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed, and done according to all that Jonadab our father 11 commanded us. But it came to pass, when Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came up into the land, that we said, Come, and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans, and for fear of the army of the Syrians; so we dwell at Jerusalem. 12, 13 Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Go, and say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will 14 ye not receive instruction to hearken to my words? saith the LORD. The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded his sons, not to drink wine, are performed, and unto this day they drink none, for they obey their father's commandment: but I have spoken unto you, rising up early and speaking; and ye have not hearkened unto me. I have sent also unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after other gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but ye have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me. Forasmuch as the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have performed the commandment of their father which he commanded them, but this people hath not hearkened unto me; therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them: because I have spoken unto them, but they have not heard; and I have called unto them, but they have not answered. And Jeremiah said unto the house of the Rechabites, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according unto all that he commanded you; therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever. 1-17. It was in the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign that this word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah. Nebuchadnezzar had invaded and devastated Judah, sent away many of its people (among them the youthful Daniel) to Babylon, and spoiled the Temple of its sacred vessels. Only Jerusalem itself was spared and those who had gathered within its walls. Among the latter were the descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab. They had temporarily left their tents and flocks in the fields, and sought protection within the defences of the capital. B. There was a remarkable people whose presence in Jerusalem, to which they had repaired for refuge on the approach of the Chaldean army, in the time of King Jehoiakim, afforded to the prophet Jeremiah an occasion, of which he was directed to avail himself, of administering a significant rebuke to the Israelites. These were the Rechabites, of whom we seem to learn from 1 Chron. 2:55, that they were identical with or a branch of the Kenites, who were of the family of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, and came with the Israelites into Palestine and there continued to lead their former mode of life, as in the instance of Heber the Kenite (Judges 4:11). When, therefore, we are told that Jonadab, the son (descendant) of Rechab, imposed upon this family the obligation never to build houses, but always to dwell in tents; and never to sow corn, or cultivate vineyards, or to drink wine, he did not impose upon them any new law of life, but bound them to the conservation of their then existing and ancient usages. All these, in fact, except the last, are such as belong to this form of life; and the last also now belongs to it among all the tribes of like habit in Western Asia, wine being forbidden to them as to other Moslems. Kitto. Their great chieftain, Jonadab, had lived in the days of Jehu. He had been a zealous supporter of the true worship; and had actively aided Jehu in the destruction of the false prophets and of the iniquitous worship of Baal. Fearing for the morals of his own tribe from the universal dissoluteness that then prevailed in Israel, and rightly discerning in the luxurious living of the cities, especially indulgence in the intoxicating cup, the chief points of peril, he sought to counteract these evil influences. He therefore commanded his sons, and persuaded them to bind themselves and their children, not to congregate in cities nor to build houses, but to live in tents and to subsist by pasturage; and further, to abstain utterly from the use of wine. And now for nearly three hundred years this command had been obeyed, the pledge faithfully kept. For successive generations the descendants of this wise tribal chief had continued to live a comparatively pure, because a simple pastoral life, afar from the temptations of the crowded city. Introduced into Jerusalem in the existing emergency, the temperate habits of these simple friendly shepherds of a foreign race were now visible to all the native Jews. Their still continued obedience to the law of abstinence prescribed by their ancestor Jonadab further distinguished them from the people of the beleaguered city. And it was the marvellous force of this long and signal example of obedience, now brought afresh before the very eyes of the persistently transgressing inhabitants of Jerusalem, that God now uses to point His stern rebuke and threatening. By God's command, the prophet openly imposes upon these Rechabites a definite test of their principles. They are formally gathered in one of the chambers of the Temple, large pots of wine and cups are set before them, and they are bidden to drink. But with courteous firmness they decline. And it is in direct connection with their touching reply (which should be very carefully read, verses 6-11) that Jeremiah is bidden to go forth with them into the great court of the Temple and utter God's rebuking message to the inhabitants there assembled. The substance of the rebuke consists in the contrast between these Rechabites and the people of Judah respecting the single matter of obedience. In the comparison, however, as stated or implied, were several points which greatly aggravated the contrast. And these are to be well heeded if we would understand the full force of God's rebuke. On the one hand, these descendants of Rechab were not Israelites. Of a race whose fathers had been excluded from their original occupancy of Canaan in favor of the incoming tribes of Jacob, they yet had submitted to the Israelites, had voluntarily sought the knowledge and favor of Jehovah, and conformed to His established worship. Furthermore—in this matter of Jonadab's command—he had simply spoken, manifested his wish, and laid it as an obligation upon his sons and descendants. He had spoken but once. His command had no accompanying promise. It was based upon no other ground than its inherent wisdom, enforced by no other appeal than its manifestly beneficent spirit and effects. But it had been filially honored and implicitly obeyed. Neither self-will nor self-indulgence had once arisen, in that long period among those successive generations, to question the wisdom or beneficence of the stringent ordinance left by their great chieftain Jonadab. And the more we ponder this filial loyalty of nearly three centuries the more signal and striking the lesson it conveys to us; the more worthy seems to be the use which God Himself condescends to make of it here; and the higher our estimate of its intrinsic force in this Divine application, by the mouth of Jeremiah. On the other hand, it was upon His own chosen richly favored people that Jehovah's commands were laid. To them He had spoken, not once or twice, but repeatedly and by many messengers, by providences and by prophets to every generation. He pictures Himself here as having patiently toiled, from the earliest morning hour, through the entire day, of many generations. In this toil He had employed not only terms of command and persuasion, but had exhausted every form of entreaty and warning. Promises too, rich and full beyond conception, had been multiplied in words, and illustrated in deliverances and mercies without number. But with all these urgencies of Divine influence, they had refused to hearken and to obey. Recall now, in connection with these facts, that sharply aggravate the contrast, the two chief points of that contrast itself, as contained in God's rebuking words. In these we find the emphatic suggestions of the story. The first is obedience, as set against disobedience; the second, filial obedience, as set against filial disobedience. The Rechabites obeyed their father, Jonadab; the Israelites disobeyed their Father, God. It is specially observable how God here emphasizes His Fatherly relation. To us Fatherhood is a fundamental element of His character. Childship is the supreme vital relation we hold to Him. This responsive connection is the beautiful suggestion which He makes in using this comparison. B. 6-10. It is a dull ear which does not catch in these words an echo, as from the rocks of Sinai, of the commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Eminent examples of filial piety, how might that law have been inscribed, as their appropriate motto, on the banners of the house of Rechab? Living in remarkable accordance with its precept, they were a remarkable monument to the truth of its promise. Distinguished from all around them by their superior respect for parental authority, they were equally distinguished by their happier fortune; while others perished, their days were long upon the land which the Lord their God had given them. That law is one of the Ten which, written by God's own finger, and spoken in thunder tones by His own awful voice, were separated and distinguished from those Mosaic ordinances, the shadows of good things to come, that were buried in the grave of Christ. Like the other nine it was fulfilled, not interred by the Redeemer. Like all other parts of the Decalogue, it is of permanent authority; and God is still making good its promise in the well-doing, the health and wealth, and prosperity of thousands who honored their parents however humble they might be, cherished them, and yielded to father and mother the reverence that was their due. Guthrie. 12-15. The strong point which the Lord makes upon this noble example is, that this tribe had adhered with unswerving constancy through so many years to the precepts of their father Jonadab, the son of Rechab, while the Jews had utterly refused to adhere to His precepts; would not listen to His repeated messages and warnings, but spurned them madly away. They heard and obeyed a mortal man; this people will not hear and obey the eternal God! H. C. 14. I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking.** God had spoken to them early and late. The figure is taken from men who address themselves early to that in which they take a deep interest, and to which they devote themselves strenuously. It is a favorite phrase with Jeremiah (7:13, 25; 11:7; 25:3, 4; 26:5, etc.). 15. It is here explained how God had spoken to them, as had been said in the preceding verse. It was by the instrumentality of His servants the prophets, whom He employed as His messengers. What they spoke was God Himself speaking. While the Rechabites obeyed their ancestor, Judah did not obey God. A single requirement sufficed for the Rechabites; frequent repetition did not secure Judah's compliance. A fresh contrast is suggested by what immediately follows. Jonadab's commandment was a purely arbitrary one; God commands that which is in itself of the highest moral obligation. Return ye now every man from his evil way. Repentance of and forsaking all that is sinful is the first step required. This negative abandonment of evil must be followed by positively doing what is right. Amend your doings. And, inasmuch as the only effectual spring of repentance and good works is to be found in communion with God and right affections toward Him, it is added, go not after other gods to serve them: He will not admit a rival, or permit that homage and service to be given to another which is due to Him alone. A further contrast between Jonadab's word to the Rechabites and God's word to Judah is that the latter was accompanied by a promise such as the former could not make. This is that, if obedient, ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you: If faithful to the Lord, they had the assurance of His Divine protection and guardianship. Ye have not inclined your ear. They paid no attention to God's reiterated commands, though the duty enjoined was so obvious and imperative and the reward promised was sure and faithful. W. H. G. God here explains why He had commissioned the prophet to bring the Rechabites into the Temple, and commanded him to set wine before them, and invite them to drink it; namely, that by their refusing to comply with the invitation, in obedience to their father Jonadab, he might convince the Jews of their disobedience to his commands, though those commands were more obligatory than the commands of Jonadab. For, first, Jonadab was but an earthly parent, and so had no absolute universal sovereignty over his children; but God was "the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel." Secondly, Jonadab's commands were not for the performance of any moral duty, but the doing of a thing which they might do or leave undone; God required of them what was but their moral duty, and for which there was the highest reason. Thirdly, Jonadab's commands had no promise annexed; God's precept had a promise annexed, yet they had not yielded Him that obedience which the sons of Jonadab had yielded him. He was the Father, but where was His honor? Poole. 16,17. Judgments are threatened, as often before, against Judah and Jerusalem for their disobedience thus aggravated. The Rechabites shall rise up in judgment against them and shall condemn them; for they very punctually performed the commandment of their father, and continued and persevered in their obedience to it (verse 16); but this people, this rebellious and gainsaying people, have not hearkened unto Me; and therefore (verse 17) because they have not obeyed the precepts of the word, God will perform the threatenings of it: "I will bring upon them, by the Chaldean army, all the evil pronounced against them, both in the law and in the prophets, for I have spoken to them, I have called to them; spoken in a still small voice to them that were near and called aloud to them that were at a distance; tried all ways and means to convince and reduce them; spoken by My word, called by My providence, both for the same purpose, and yet all to no purpose; they have not heard nor answered." H. 18, 19. The promise of God to the Rechabites. This promise instantly and openly follows the open rebuke, and as designed, gives that rebuke an emphatic intensity and force. Because of their filial obedience, they receive the promise of the Fifth Commandment—of a perpetuated existence. The phrase "Stand before Me," which is figurative, implies that there should always be some of the tribe as participants in the service of Jehovah. Like all the Divine promises, this was probably conditional; and "its accomplishment may have depended upon the fidelity with which their descendants kept their pledge." Modern travellers assert the existence at the present day, in Arabia, of small tribes claiming a lineal descent from the Rechabites, who are still loyal to the precepts of Jonadab. It is well to point the argument and appeal in behalf of abstinence from wine, with this noble example of the sons of Jonadab. But let us remember that the single point directly and designedly conveyed by this Divine message respects solely the contrast of obedience on the one side, and disobedience on the other. By pressing this point, of the superior obligation of obedience to God's commandment, a more effective use of the example may be made, even as regards the intemperate. A legitimate use of the Rechabites' example respecting abstinence from intoxicating drinks lies in the fact that they, in an age of comparative ignorance, were able to discern the evils of indulgence in the use of wine. B. 18. Having delivered his heavy message of judgment and woe upon Judah and Jerusalem, he turns to the house of the Rechabites with a message of approval and blessing. "Honor thy father and mother," says the apostle (Eph. 6:2), "which is the first commandment with promise." And throughout the Word of God this duty is emphasized and the promise reiterated. The commendation bestowed upon the Rechabites is for this one thing—their filial obedience—the reward for which is "that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee" (Ex. 20:12). This Judah had forfeited; but the Rechabites had a right to claim it. W. H. G.—The thing which the Lord blessed on this occasion is one which He always blesses, and without which nothing can be blessed—obedience. The Rechabites thought that they were fulfilling a duty. The Rechabites had obeyed. It seems as if God was unwilling to look farther; the principle of obedience is so precious, so fundamental, so easily neglected, that God, when He meets with it, does not inquire too strictly into the form in which it has been realized. He does not quarrel captiously, if I dare so speak, with regard to the garb of the principle, for in His eyes, as in those of sound sense, "the body is more than raiment;" and as the abstinence which the Rechabites prescribed to themselves had nothing bad in itself, He blesses it, judging that obedience cannot be too much encouraged, nor the scruples of obedience handled too tenderly. Vince. The symbolical lesson which God instructs Jeremiah to read to the Israelites from the conduct of the Rechabites, whom no temptations could induce to swerve from their "father's commandment," while Israel so easily forgot and trampled upon His, is wonderfully touching. Nor is it the least instructive part of the lesson, that though "the children" He had "nourished and brought up had rebelled" against Him, He declares He would signally reward and honor the filial obedience even of the inferior type; and commissions Jeremiah to assure the Rechabites of it. H. Rogers. 19. Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before Me forever. The connection and the contrast which is plainly intended determine the meaning of these words to be that, while the inhabitants of Judah shall be cut off and banished from the land, the Rechabites shall be saved from threatened destruction. To "stand before the Lord" here does not mean to exercise the priestly office, as in Deut. 10:8 and Ezek. 44:15, nor to take the attitude of worshippers, as in Jer. 7:10, but to be preserved by Him, and possess His favor, as in Jer. 15:19 and Ps. 5:5. W. H. G.—The commands of Jonadab the Rechabite had been kept centuries after his death by his people, who are not descendants of Abraham, and who consequently participate in the covenant of promise only mediately and in the second line. Israel, however, had not obeyed the commands of Jehovah, the God of hosts, though they have been presented and inculcated unceasingly by prophets; therefore all the threatenings pronounced by the Lord on Israel shall be fulfilled. But to the Rechabites it is promised that Jonadab shall not want a man to stand before Jehovah. Lange. In 1832 Dr. Joseph Wolff found the Rechabites of Jer. 35 near Sena. One of them, Mousa by name, in answer to the question, Whose descendants are you? read from an Arabic Bible (Jer. 35:5-11), and said, "You will find us sixty thousand in number." You see the words of the prophet have been fulfilled: "Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not want a man to stand before Me forever." Even as late as October, 1862, an Eastern traveller, Signor Pierotti, read a paper at the Cambridge meeting of the British Association, stating that he met a tribe calling themselves by this name near the Dead Sea. They had a Hebrew Bible, and told him the same story that had been told Dr. Wolff thirty years before. Even these historical proofs, for which I am mainly indebted to Smith's Bible Dictionary, are not exhaustive. But they suffice to show that the Rechabites are one of the Lord's standing witnesses preserved by Him age after age to testify to the reality of certain great Scripture facts over which the waves of time have rolled for several thousand years. The distinct preservation of the Rechabites belongs to the same class of facts with the preservation of the Jews and of the ancient Samaritans, all of whom are among the Lord's special witnesses to the historic and prophetic credibility of the Old Testament. H. C. The superiority, or the greater nobleness, of self-denial, self-mortification, self-abnegation, in contrast with self-indulgence, self-gratification, self-enjoyment, is found reflected in the teachings of the Bible, both in connection with the assurance that ultimately the truest objective gain to one's self is through the surrender and forgetfulness of self, and in connection also with the primary and more elementary truth that selfishness is a lower attribute of man's nature, and that self-seeking is unworthy of a man's truer and better self. Precept and illustration combine for the enforcement of this truth, in the Old Testament and in the New. No better example in this line could perhaps be given from the Old Testament record than that which is furnished in the incident of the self-denying Rechabites and their commendation. It is not said that Jonadab exacted any vow from his people, or that they made him any specific pledge on the subject. It is only declared that he enjoined upon them this life of self-denial as a duty, and that they nobly adhered to the restrictions which he pointed out to them as desirable. For so doing they deserved credit; and for so doing they had the Lord's commendation. It was their filial adherence to their father's injunction of self-denying abstemiousness that was the immediate cause of their being held up before Judah, and so held up before the world, as examples worthy of imitation for all time to come. Not merely because they were obedient, but because they were self-denying in their conformity to the wise injunctions of their ancestor, were they thus honored above their fellows. It is nobler now, as it was in the days of Jeremiah, to deny one's self than to indulge one's self; and without a readiness to exercise self-denial daily, even to the extent of the restrictions of the Rechabites, there is no possibility of serving God acceptably in city or in country. Says a greater than Jonadab, to all who would hear and heed His word—even Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master: "If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me;" and again: "Whosoever doth not bear his own cross [and to bear a cross involves self-denial] and come after Me, cannot be My disciple. So, therefore, whosoever he be of you that renounceeth not all that he hath [and so practises self-abnegation], he cannot be My disciple." There is, obviously, a great deal more than filial obedience covered by the example of the Rechabites, and the requirements of our Lord from His disciples. Intelligent self-denial for the sake of the right and at the command of Him whose we are and whom we serve, is an essential element in the noblest Christian manhood. This self-denial may—it often does—demand as an absolute duty the specific requirements of the Rechabite nomad-life—total abstinence from all that can intoxicate, the shunning of wealth-seeking, and a pilgrim life on earth. However this may be in any particular instance, the spirit which prompted the Rechabites to be self-denyingly faithful to the wise injunctions given to them by their ancestor is essential to the very existence of the Christian life, and is inseparable from the duties of Christian discipleship. S. S. T. The simple purpose of this introduction of the Rechabites into the Word of God is to reprove bad men in the Church by contrasting them with good men out of the Church. The value of such a fragment in the Scriptures for practical use in all ages may be seen by a brief notice of the following hints: 1. The popular criticism upon the Church is true: "Better men are out of it than some men in it." There are bad men in the Church, and very imperfect good ones. Men profess religion who will cheat in a trade, who will lie to cover the cheat, who will take a false oath to bolster the lie. 2. The contrast between apostates in the Church, and good men out of it, is an exception to the general fact. As the Rechabites of old were a small and exceptional sect, no fair representative of the heathen world, so now the good men who are not churchmen are not a fair specimen of what men naturally become who live out of covenant with God. As in the Jewish Church there were men and women who were not apostates, so there are multitudes in the Christian Church now who do not deserve the charge that they are no better than other men. The apostates and hypocrites on the one side, and the good men who are not churchmen on the other, are both exceptions to the general law. It is but fair to admit this. It is but just to claim it. The very fact that the alleged contrast attracts attention and provokes satire is proof of this. 3. The concessions which Christians make to cynical critics of the Church need often to be qualified by loyalty to the brotherhood. There is a virtue in loyalty to one's guild, which truth and justice sometimes call to the front. There is a tone of criticism of the Church which sounds very candid, and very faithful, and very independent of clanship, which, after all, is unmanly and mean, simply because it is not true. The faults of Christians are exaggerated. The numbers of the hypocritical are overrated. Guilt is assumed on insufficient evidence. Evidence which a jury would scout is deemed sufficient to condemn a professor of religion. Such accusers do not face the accused like men. They will swell a secret into common fame; yet, when summoned to bear witness, they skulk. The truth is that conscious hypocrites in the Church are comparatively few. 4. The virtues of good men who are not churchmen are due largely to the salutary influence of the Church upon them. The Rechabites owed their knowledge of the true God to the Jewish people. Their virtues were due to their association with that people, not to their knowledge or practice of heathenism and its fruits. Similar is the teaching of history in all subsequent ages. The virtues of the world in their finest growth live upon the graces of the Church. Christian ideas govern the public opinion of the world to-day, though spiritual religion is by no means in the ascendant. It takes but a small minority of earnest believers to carry with them the speculative belief of a large majority. So nations populous and mighty are nominally Christian to-day because they contain a nucleus of spiritual Christians. These keep alive the Christian religion as a power of restraint, of culture, of refinement, of civilization, of virtue, to multitudes to whom it is not yet a power of salvation. That such men are what they are, they owe to the living faith that is in the Church. They owe it to godly mothers and praying fathers, and Christian wives, and the recollections of their own Christian childhood. That among them are found Christians in heart who are not such by profession, they owe to the more positive and consistent ones, who do not fear to profess before the world the faith they cherish in secret. The Church of Christ achieves thus a vast amount of unacknowledged conquest. 5. While God blesses goodness and the right wherever He finds them, He still depends for them chiefly upon the Church which He has created for all time. History, in this old Judean line, seems to turn aside for a moment to salute respectfully these ancient sons of temperance. Yet it speedily returns again to the old channel of the Church of God. No sect is taken as a substitute for the Church. God does not abandon His people and take up Rechabites in their stead. He knew His own mind when He founded the Church, and said to Abraham, "In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." The great stream of civilization and redemption has flowed down the ages of the past, not through any accidental and wayside canal of Rechabite or Masonic virtue, but through the great river-bed of the Christian Church. Here are the living fountains. Here are treasured the truths which the world most needs to know. Here are garnered the promises which gild with golden radiance the world's future. The hope of all coming time is in this Church of the living God. It becomes us all to walk humbly before God. Vows in the Church or out of it cannot save us. The contrite and believing heart—this and this only is the place in which God dwells. This is more to God than the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud—more than the Shechinah and the holy of holies. This is more to Christ than church and clergy and sacraments. "I heard a great voice out of heaven saying: Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them. God Himself shall be with them and be their God." Phelps. This chapter belongs to the fourth and fifth years of Jehoiakim (verses 1, 9). The Lord directs Jeremiah to write all his prophecies into one roll or volume. The prophet employs Baruch as his amanuensis; then sends him to read these prophecies before all the people who might convene in the Temple on a day of public fasting. Micaiah heard this public reading, and reported what he heard to the princes. They sent for Baruch to bring the volume and read to them. He did so. They thought the king ought to hear this book, and notified him accordingly. The king sent Jehudi for the book. He brought it, and read a few leaves; whereupon the king took the book from him, cut it up with his penknife and burned it all in the fire. The Lord directs Jeremiah to write out all those prophecies again, which he did, "adding also many like words;" and also announced from the Lord the fearful doom of this impious king. H. C. The victory of Carchemish (606 or 605 B.C.) was gained by the Babylonian army in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer. 46:2), and it was in the same fourth year of his reign that Jeremiah made Baruch write in a book his prophetic denunciations of judgment (Jer. 36:1). The conjunction of these two events is deeply significant. What followed can be easily understood. As Nebuchadnezzar advanced toward Palestine (2 K. 24:1), in the fifth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, the Jewish king, in abject fear, proclaimed a national fast (Jer. 36:9). Whether this was done from superstition, or for the sake of popular effect, or else in hope of conciliating the prophet and his adherents, certain it is that the professed repentance was hypocritical. The Book of Jeremiah's prophecies, which Baruch had publicly read on that occasion, was cut in pieces by the king himself, and thrown on the fire (Jer. 36:22, 23). Jeremiah and Baruch only escaped imprisonment, if not death, by timely concealment. Nevertheless, Nebuchadnezzar appeared in Jerusalem. Jehoiakim, who would be regarded as a vassal of Egypt, was bound in fetters, with the intention of being carried to Babylon. This, however, was not done—perhaps because of the summons which rapidly recalled Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon. But the vessels of the Temple were sent to Babylon, and placed, first in the victor's palace, and then in the temple of his god—probably Belmerodach or Belus. A. E. 3. It may be that the house of Judah will hear.** In many places God is represented as speaking after the manner of men, and using such methods as in human probability may be most likely to prevail. These and such-like expressions likewise import that God's foreknowledge of future events doth not put any force upon men's will, nor take away the liberty of human actions, as Origen hath acutely observed. W. Lowth.—The writing of the Scripture is by Divine appointment. And observe the reason here given for the writing of this roll—it may be the house of Judah will hear. Not that the Divine prescience was at any uncertainty concerning the event; with that there is no peradventure. And though God foresaw that they would not hear, He did not tell the prophet so, but prescribed this method to him as a probable one to be used, in the hopes that they would hear—that is, heed and regard what they heard. H. The preparation of the roll and its reading was the act of Divine love, which plainly tells of evil in order that it may not be forced to inflict evil. That is strongly put in verse 3, which represents God as declaring that the purpose of the roll is that Judah, hearing the evil which He purposes to do to them, may turn from the evil which they have done toward Him, and that so it may be possible for God to forgive them. No greater proof of God's love can be given than the plainest warning of the certain fall of His judgments. Jehoiakim and his modern successors made a fatal mistake when they fancy that the roll, which tells of punishment, is anything else than a token of love. The retribution is predicted that it may never be experienced; and none would have been so glad as Jeremiah would have been if all his prophecies had remained unfulfilled because they had done their work. None on earth would have been so glad, but there would have been greater gladness in the presence of the angels of heaven, if God's word had returned so blessedly void, having, notwithstanding, accomplished that whereto He had sent it. A. M. 5. It is not said that he was shut up in prison, but barely that he was "shut up," or confined; or, taken in connection with the following context, under some such restraint as precluded him from going to the house of the Lord. This might have been in a variety of ways without being shut up in prison, a species of persecution which does not appear to have befallen him about this time. Blayney. 6,7. The same reason for reading the book before the people appears here as above (verse 3) for writing it. It may be that they will hear, consider, turn to prayer and penitence, and so find mercy. 9,10. The special occasion of this fast is not stated. It was not the annual Jewish fast, for this was on the tenth day of the seventh month (Lev. 23:27 and 16:29-31). It was therefore an extraordinary fast, and was probably called by the princes at the instance of the people, for the king does not appear in it at all. The occasion which prompted it was the danger from the Chaldeans, who had utterly broken the Egyptian power a few months before at the great battle of Carchemish on the upper Euphrates (46:2). Hence naturally, as the Jews had been in substantial alliance with the Egyptians, they had reason to fear the Chaldeans. Be this as it may, it was an admirable opportunity for this public reading of the Book of Jeremiah before the assembled people. 11-13. The object of Micaiah seems to have been good. He thought the princes ought to be acquainted with the contents of this volume. He was at this time a young man, his grandfather, Shaphan, having been a very active scribe in the great reformation under Josiah. 17-19. They were inquisitive to know how the book came into existence, and what part Baruch had in its production. They knew the king so well that they anticipated danger to Jeremiah and Baruch when he should hear the book read; hence their advice of concealment. 20,21. It is plain they did not think the book altogether safe in the king's hands, so they laid it away carefully in the scribe's chamber. Their plan was first to report its contents to the king, and then await further developments. The king was not content with merely hearing the book reported, but ordered it brought and read before him. The princes were present. 22-26. The ninth month would include part of our December. This fire, as the original word indicates, was burning in a small pot or portable furnace. The "penknife" of those times must be thought of as large enough to sharpen the wooden style used for writing on parchment. The reader will notice the mingled fear and horror of the author, tacitly implied in his surprise that neither the king nor his servants were afraid, nor expressed any indignation at this horrid impiety of the king. He had openly insulted and condemned the Infinite God! Why did not all the princes stand aghast, as if afraid of some sudden outburst of Jehovah's wrath! The king's guilt was the more flagrant because at least three of his princes had besought him not to burn this roll. In every aspect of this king's character we see only consummate hardihood and sin—consummate meanness and guilt. In his indignation against Jeremiah and Baruch, he orders them to be arrested. The Lord had caused them to be secreted from his search. Probably he would then have taken their lives if he could. H. C. He had not patience to hear it read through, as the princes had, but when he had heard three or four leaves read, in a rage he cut it with his penknife and threw it piece by piece into the fire, that he might be sure to see it all consumed (verses 22, 23). This was a piece of as daring impiety as a man could lightly be guilty of, and a most impudent affront to the God of heaven, whose message this was. Thus he showed his impatience of reproof; being resolved to persist in sin, he would by no means bear to be told of his faults. Thus he showed his indignation at Baruch and Jeremiah; he would have cut them in pieces and burned them, if he had had them in his reach when he was in this passion. Thus he expressed an obstinate resolution never to comply with the designs and intentions of the warnings given him; he will do what he will, whatever God by His prophets says to the contrary. Thus he foolishly hoped to defeat the threatenings denounced against him; as if God knew not how to execute the sentence when the roll was gone in which it was written. H. Jehoiakim with his penknife and brazier has no lack of imitators to-day. There are plenty of people who try to cut out of Scripture all the bits that pinch them, or threaten evil consequences to sinful men. What is the modern craving for a revelation which has no word about the "wrath of God," but this foolish king's act in modern guise? Here is some stern saying which warns sinners that sin is death. Out with the penknife, and into the brazier with the "narrow-minded, ferocious" words! Cut out every verse that speaks of punishment, and leave us only the teachings that God is very good natured, and that everybody is on the right road. If we strike out retributive justice from the character of God, the love that is left is only weak indulgence, and His whole character is weakened and lowered. A. M. From our later standpoint it is easy to see that Jehoiakim might have known better. God never leaves a sinner without warning; only the sinner himself never sees that he is a fool. The northern kingdom of Israel had fallen a century before from causes similar to those which were now undermining Israel. The history of Judah itself, even during the reigns of good Hezekiah and Josiah, might have warned him against the worthlessness of heathen alliances. Even Jehoiakim's own experience ought to have been enough. Had he not been a creature of Pharaoh-Necho? Is he not still a sort of vassal of Nebuchadnezzar? But sin is such an infatuation that he only made a mock at it. Originally selfish, as all men are, he had allowed his heart to become hard. Habit had acquired weight in the wrong scale, and had here so crystallized into bad character that he could neither see the truth nor choose the right. The love of consistency and the inertia of character of course compelled him to moral suicide at last. As the Spanish proverb has it: "Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap character;" sow character, reap destiny. The only salvation for Jehoiakim would have been by listening to the prophet, to transfer the pivot of his life from his own depraved will to the holy will of God—conversion. But that he would not do. Consequently he domineered over his princes and his servants. He tried to capture God's messengers, probably to kill them. Worst of all, he raised a fatal controversy with God Himself. Is it not strange that sinners cannot foresee the inevitable end of such a conflict? In this decisive particular, Jehoiakim is not exceptional, but representative. Every sinner does the same thing, in his own way, and with the same result. Jehoiakim was against the roll, and against God and His prophet, because they were all against him. They rebuked his sin and folly. How foolish sinners are, and how futile sin! They hack God's word to bits, as though Baruch could write no more, nor Jeremiah dictate what the Holy Spirit breathed, nor Jeho-vah remember His own will! Sinners thus reject what is meant for their good, and they find eventually that the revelation is renewed and made more full and specific, and that its predicted decrees shall be enforced. Jeremiah and Jehoiakim alike found that the word of the Lord is indestructible, and abideth forever; the one to his glory and joy, the other to his shame and everlasting contempt. We are still under the same sovereign and gracious government; and one or the other of their opposite destinies foretells our own. M'Pherson. 32. Another roll . . . wrote therein all the words . . . added many besides.** And this was all that Jehoiakim got by burning the prophecy of Jeremiah. When Jeremiah and Baruch wrote the second roll, they were directed by God to add to it several things which were not in the former—aggravations, no doubt, of Jehoiakim's punishment for his impious burning of the first roll. And very just it was that his doom should be aggravated. For if every abuse of temporal blessings shall be imputed, as certainly it shall, to wicked men to augment their reckoning at the last day, much less shall spiritual wantonness and intemperance be overlooked and escape such imputation. Reading.—So is it always. God's word is indestructible. You may burn it and its present preachers, but it and they will be followed by a larger roll and mightier successors. As John Huss said, "You may burn a goose ["Huss" means "goose"], but from his ashes will come a swan." Martin Luther fulfilled that prophecy. "It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead," said Herod; and his forebodings were right in substance. Every word of God is indestructible, and the attempt to destroy any fragment of its threatenings only ensures a resurrection of these with added weight and power. A. M. 21:1 THE word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when king Zedekiah sent unto him Pashhur the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying, 2 Inquire, I pray thee, of the LORD for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us: peradventure the LORD will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us. 3, 4 Then said Jeremiah unto them, Thus shall ye say to Zedekiah: Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans which besiege you, without 5 the walls, and I will gather them into the midst of this city. And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in 6 great wrath. And I will smile the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall 7 die of a great pestilence. And afterward, saith the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, even such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have 8 mercy. And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I set before you 9 the way of life and the way of death. He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth away to the Chal- 10 deans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. For I have set my face upon this city for evil, and not for good, saith the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. 11, 12 And touching the house of the king of Judah, hear ye the word of the LORD: O house of David, thus saith the LORD, Execute judgement in the morning, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go forth like fire, and burn that none can 13 quench it, because of the evil of your doings. Behold, I am against thee, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the rock of the plain, saith the LORD: ye which say, Who shall come down 14 against us? or who shall enter into our habitations? and I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the LORD: and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is round about her. 37:1 And Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king, instead of Coniah the son of Jehoi- 2 akim, whom Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah. But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, did hearken unto the words of the LORD, which he spake by the prophet Jeremiah. 3 And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Ma- aseiah the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now unto the LORD our God for us. 4 Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people: for they had not put him into 5 prison. And Pharaoh's army was come forth out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that 6 besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they brake up from Jerusalem. Then came the 7 word of the LORD unto the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Thus shall ye say to the king of Judah, that sent you unto me to inquire of me; Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land. 8 And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city; and they shall take it, and 9 burn it with fire. Thus saith the LORD: Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans 10 shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire. 11 And it came to pass that when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem 12 for fear of Pharaoh's army, then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land 13 of Benjamin, to receive his portion there, in the midst of the people. And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he laid hold on Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou 14 fallest away to the Chaldeans. Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chal- deans; but he hearkened not to him: so Irijah laid hold on Jeremiah, and brought him to 15 the princes. And the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in 16 prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison. When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon house, and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there 17 many days; then Zedekiah the king sent, and fetched him: and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from the LORD? And Jeremiah said, There is. He 18 said also, Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. Moreover Jeremiah said unto king Zedekiah, Wherein have I sinned against thee, or against thy servants, or 19 against this people, that ye have put me in prison? Where now are your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against 20 this land? And now hear, I pray thee, O my lord the king: let my supplication, I pray thee, be accepted before thee; that thou cause me not to return to the house of Jonathan the 21 scribe, lest I die there. Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard, and they gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city was spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard. 28:1 And Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucel the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah spake unto all the people, saying, Thus saith the LORD, He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey, and he shall live. Thus saith the LORD, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. Then the princes said unto the king, Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; forasmuch as he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words unto them: for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt. And Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand: for the king is not he that can do anything against you. Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the king's son, that was in the court of the guard: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: and Jeremiah sank in the mire. Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an eunuch, which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon; the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin; Ebed-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spake to the king, saying, My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die in the place where he is because of the famine: for there is no more bread in the city. Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he die. So Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords. And Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and took him up out of the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard. Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet unto him into the third entry that is in the house of the LORD: and the king said unto Jeremiah, I will ask thee a thing; hide nothing from me. Then Jeremiah said unto Zedekiah, If I declare it unto thee, will thou not surely put me to death? and if I give thee counsel, thou wilt not hearken unto me. So Zedekiah the king swore secretly unto Jeremiah, saying, As the LORD liveth, that made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, neither will I give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life. Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: If thou wilt go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire; and thou shalt live, and thine house: but if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon's princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand. And Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen away to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me. But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver thee. Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the LORD, in that which I speak unto thee: so it shall be well with thee, and thy soul shall live. But if thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that the LORD hath shewed me: Behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes, and those women shall say, Thy familiar friends have set thee on, and have prevailed over thee: now that thy feet are sunk in the mire, they are turned away back. And they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans: and thou shalt not escape out of their hand, but shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire. Then said Zedekiah unto Jeremiah, Let no man know of these words, and thou shalt not die. But if the princes hear that I have talked with thee, and they come unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare unto us now what thou hast said unto the king; hide it not from us, and we will not put thee to death: also what the king said unto thee: then thou shalt say unto them, I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not cause me to return to Jonathan's house, to die there. Then came all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him: and he told them according to all these words that the king had commanded. So they left off speaking with him; for the matter was not perceived. So Jeremiah abode in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken. The part taken by the prophet Jeremiah, and the cause of his imprisonment. It is certain that Jeremiah sided throughout with the Babylonish party, not only in Josiah's reign, but through the succeeding reigns of Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. He could not but see the broken and iniquitous condition of his people. And this, with his inspired foresight of God's chastening purposes, led him to use his utmost endeavor that Judah's kings and people should not unnecessarily exasperate the Babylonish monarch. He would save them from all possible aggravation of wickedness as well as useless resistance, and thus from consequent suffering. Hence the enmity of the Egyptian party in the capital, often during the twenty years of these closing reigns, endangered the prophet's life. Protected he was, however, up to the last siege of Jerusalem; partly by his manifest prophetic office, and partly by the friends God raised up—by the kings themselves, or by priestly and noble defenders. His imprisonment occurred toward the end of Zedekiah's reign, about eighteen months before the final crisis of the kingdom, when Jerusalem was destroyed and the remaining people carried captive to Babylon. Zedekiah, a weak rather than wicked king, yielding to the Egyptian party, had been persuaded to renounce subjection to the king of Babylon, and enter into alliance with Egypt. B.—It is evident that Zedekiah was well affected toward Jeremiah; for he thrice asked his advice, first by a public embassy (21:1; 37:3) and subsequently in secret (37:17; 38:14); but he was far too weak a man to be capable of energetic action in his behalf, and so allowed him to be imprisoned and persecuted. The city had been besieged by the Chaldeans, and was tottering to its fall, when the approach of the Egyptian army gave the inhabitants hope of aid; and for a short time the Chaldeans departed from Jerusalem. Then Zedekiah sent to Jeremiah, asking him to pray unto the Lord for them, probably expecting that he would intercede for the city, as Isaiah had done in the days of Hezekiah (Isa. 37:6). Jeremiah's answer was more unfavorable than he had given before. It was that the Egyptians would accomplish nothing, and that the Chaldeans would return and take the city. The princes were angry with Jeremiah, smote him, and put him in prison. Zedekiah, on the renewal of the siege, sent and took him out, and secretly ordered him brought to his palace, where he again consulted him, but with the same result. Jeremiah prays for milder treatment. Zedekiah, who was of a kindly disposition and remembered Jeremiah as an honored prophet in the days of his father, now gives him roomy quarters in the court of the guard, where he wrote the cheerful prophecy contained in chaps. 30-33; and as provisions were growing scarce, the king ordered that a loaf of bread should be given him every day. The purpose of the princes was frustrated by his removal to the guard-house, as there his friends had free access to him. B. C. Chap. 21. This chapter contains the first of those prophecies, which were delivered by Jeremiah subsequent to the revolt of Zedekiah, and the breaking out of the war thereupon; and which are continued on to the taking of Jerusalem. The terms of this message seem to imply that the king of Babylon had but just commenced his hostilities against Judah, of which Zedekiah informs the prophet, as of a matter that might not have come to his certain knowledge; and desires him to intercede with God, that He would divert the storm by some such extraordinary interposition as He had been wont to manifest in favor of His people. Blayney.—The Lord's answer through His prophet was very categorical, decisive and appalling, still leaving an open door, however, for hope on the one sole condition that the king and his people would thoroughly repent and reform their ways. Even at this late hour salvation was possible on these only righteous conditions. 8-10. This gives the people to understand distinctly that the city is doomed to destruction, and that their only hope of personal safety lies in going out and giving themselves up to the Chaldeans. This is a clear illustration of the language elsewhere used of the moral choice which the Lord sets before men between the way of life and the way of death—e.g., De. 30:15-20 and Josh. 24:14-24. H. C. 8. Set before you the way of life and the way of death.** The impression of every scene, of every lesson, of every folly is pushing you on to some decision—whether you will serve God or not, whether you will consecrate your life to its true end or not. On, on rolls the tide of hours, days and years, awifter and stronger in current, setting more resistless toward the cataract. Moment flows into moment, melts into the mass and is lost to view, but every drop swells the flood that presses you to the final issue. Gillett. There are two courses in life. There are but two. The two are utterly irreconcilable and discordant. You cannot have them both. It must be one thing or the other. The choice is really made, degradingly and disgracefully by the very act of refraining from choosing. But if you would be men, choose, determine! I do not need to contemplate the possibility of anybody here saying, "You have set before me life and death, and I solemnly and deliberately choose death;" but I beseech you, take care that you do not slip into the choice of the worse part before you know where you are, and that years of careless yielding to circumstances and temptations do not at last rob you of the power to resolve that your life shall ever be otherwise moulded than by external forces. A. M. Oh, if we could realize to ourselves who we are, and where I placed on what a mighty eminence of blessing; raised to what a height of privilege and hope; walking along what a narrow ridge of duty; beset by what terrible enemies; helped by what a wonderful indwelling Presence; travelling onward with a steady pace, which no power or skill of man can check or stay, to what a certain, an irreversible, an endless doom! Like a ship pressing with full sail into an unknown sea, with a thick mist around her, we are pressing into the future: we cannot stay—we cannot pause—we can furl no sails—we can let out no anchors; on we must go, and on we are going to find our rock, our quicksand or our harbor. Bp. Moberly. Chap. 37. The date of this chapter falls during the reign of Zedekiah, and within the last eighteen months of his reign—i.e., within the period of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. It refers specially to the historic fact that during the progress of this siege the king of Egypt approached with an army for the relief of his own allies. Whereupon the Chaldeans raised the siege and marched against the Egyptians. In the result the Egyptians returned to their own country. The Chaldeans reinvested Jerusalem and ultimately took it. Precisely at what stage of the siege this diversion by the Egyptians occurred or how long the siege was suspended in consequence, we are not told. While they were absent Jeremiah took the opportunity to leave the city, was arrested at the city gate, and thrown into close confinement. 6-10. The imperilled Jews and their king were ready to grasp the faintest shadow of hope from this approach of an Egyptian army. But the Lord was against them. Hence no earthly power could save them from destruction. It was of the Lord's mercy that He promptly and solemnly warned them against deceiving themselves with this vain hope. Such hope lessened the pressure of motive on their minds to repent before God and seek His favor. Hence the promptness and decision of this assurance that help from that quarter was vain. H. C. 12-21. We have here a further account concerning Jeremiah, who relates more passages concerning himself than any other of the prophets; for the histories of the lives and sufferings of God's ministers have been very serviceable to the Church, as well as their preaching and writing. H. 12. Then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem. The investing army having withdrawn, communication was again opened between the city and the adjacent country. To go into the land of Benjamin. Jeremiah's patrimony lay in Anathoth, in the tribe of Benjamin (Jer. 1:1), which was one of the cities assigned to the priests in the time of Joshua (Josh. 21:17, 18). To receive his portion there**, or, "from thence." It was evidently some matter of business connected with his paternal estate. It could hardly have been his purpose to remain in so exposed a situation, when the Chaldeans should return as he confidently expected (Jer. 37:8-10). Jeremiah steadfastly insisted upon sharing the fortunes of his countrymen even after the fall of the city, in spite of the tempting offers that were made to him of a comfortable home in Babylon (Jer. 40:4, 6); and it is not probable that he meant to desert them now. 15. And the princes smote him, and put him in prison.** In spite of his protestations, he was adjudged guilty, beaten and imprisoned. W. H. G.—The charge of intended desertion was a mere excuse for wreaking their malice on him. They hated Jeremiah because he had steadily opposed the popular determination to fight, and had foretold disaster. Add to that that he had held up a high standard of religion and morality to a corrupt and idolatrous people, and his "unpopularity" is sufficiently explained. A. M. 16. When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon house.** Literally, as in the margin, "house of the pit." This pit, or cistern, is not further described, except as a place where Jeremiah was likely to perish (verse 20). The miserable plight in which he was in another filthy dungeon, into which he was subsequently thrust, is detailed somewhat at length in Jer. 38:6 sqq. W. H. G. The princes were the power behind the throne. They hated Jeremiah. Although they might differ in many things from the priests and the false prophets, they agreed with them in detesting this stern, truth-telling man, as Pilate and Herod were made friends by their common hostility to Christ. The princes, too, held the sympathies of the populace, for all were united in a frenzy of fear and in opposition to the man who deservedly condemned them all. The hatred was political as well as personal and moral; and political passions are very likely to become virulent. The princes still clung, with stubborn conservatism, to the exhausted protection of Egypt. Jeremiah, instructed by God, counselled temporary surrender to Babylon; and no wonder, since that would be no more than a recognition of existing facts. It must be remembered, too, that the courtly party remaining in Jerusalem and Judah was only a remnant. The strongest of the princes had been deported to Babylon, where, with Jehoiachin and his household, they remained respected in imprisonment. Those left behind were but refuse. It is not surprising that these weak, base men were nagging the one great citizen surviving in the kingdom. Ezekiel and Daniel were among the exiles in Babylon. Jeremiah was practically alone in Judah. The party that had formerly been friendly to him was disintegrated and scattered. As for the rest, gnats, as they prefer carrion, enjoy the attempt to worry a lion to death. But the lion is, after all, the hero of that whole period of Hebrew history. Jeremiah belongs to the rare company who, when they do well, suffer for it, and yet take it patiently (1 Pet. 2 : 20). They are too good for this world, but acceptable with God. Persecution is now uncommon; the world has softened and grown wiser. Perhaps the average Christian, too, is less scrupulous and less brave. But it is still a poor type of piety which is popular with worldliness. McPherson. 17. After many days' confinement in this horrible dungeon underground, the king took him out and asked him secretly if there was any word from the Lord. The prophet's circumstances were at this time such as would most thoroughly test his loyalty to his Divine Lord. He had every earthly inducement to please the king; yet he fearlessly announced the king's terrible doom from the Lord, "Thou shalt be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon." Prison discipline had not unnerved his steadfast purpose to be true to his God. He had an earnest personal plea to make for his liberty and his life. He wisely put this plea on its own bottom—an humble appeal to the king's sense of justice and feelings of compassion. He could not swerve from his fidelity to God for the sake of even liberty or life. 18,19. What is my offence? I have only told you the truth, one proof of which you may yourself see; for where are those false prophets that gainsayed my words and belied the Lord, saying, "The king of Babylon shall not come up against this city and land?" Let the king look at the facts, and he will see that so far all my predictions have proved true. Why, then, should he count me his enemy for telling him the truth? H. C.—In Jeremiah's answer we may note, as equally prominent and beautifully blended, respect, submission, consciousness of peril and impending death, and unshaken boldness. He knew that his life was at the disposal of the capricious, feeble Zedekiah. He bows before him as his subject, and brings his "supplication;" but not one jot of his message will he abate, nor smooth down its terribleness an atom. He repeats as unfalteringly as ever the assurance that the king of Babylon will take the city. He asserts his own innocence as regards king and courtiers and people; and he asks what has become of all the smooth-tongued prophets of prosperity, as if he had bid the king look over the city wall and see the tokens of their lies and of Jeremiah's truth in the investing lines of the all but victorious enemy. Such a combination of perfect meekness and perfect courage, unstained loyalty to his king, and supreme obedience to his God, was only possible to a man who lived in very close communion with Jehovah, and had learned thereby to fear none else, because he feared Him so well, and to reverence all else whom He had set in places of reverence. True courage, of the pattern which befits God's servants, is ever gentle. Bluster is the sign of weakness. A. M. 21. The king acceded to his request. By the king's command Jeremiah was committed "into the court of the guard." This was a court connected with a portion of the palace, which was used as a prison (Jer. 32 : 2). He was still in custody, but in much more comfortable quarters than those which he had previously occupied. W. H. G. And they gave him daily a loaf of bread. He had interest enough in the prophet to interfere for his comfort, and to have him put into better quarters in the palace and provided with a "circle" (a round loaf) of bread out of Baker Street, as long as there was any in the city—not a very long time. But why did he do so much, and not do more? He knew that Jeremiah was innocent, and that his word was God's; and what he should have done was to have shaken off his masterful "servants," followed his conscience, and obeyed God. Why did he not? Because he was a coward, infirm of purpose, and therefore unstable as water. He is another of the tragic examples with which all life as well as Scripture is studded, of how much evil is possible to a weak character. In this world, where there are so many temptations to be bad, no man will be good who cannot strongly say "No." The virtue of strength of will may be but like the rough fence round young trees to keep cattle from browsing on them and east winds from blighting them. But the fence is needed, if the trees are to grow. "To be weak is to be miserable," and sinful, too, generally. "Whom resist" must be the motto for all noble, God-like, and God pleasing life. A. M. 38 : 1-4. Jeremiah persists in his plain preaching; what he had many a time said, he still says (verse 3), This city shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon; though it hold out long, it will be taken at last; so that every man might have his own life given him for a prey if he would be advised (verse 2). The princes persist in their malice against Jeremiah. They represented him to the king as a dangerous man, disaffected to his country and government; he seeks not the welfare of this people, but the hurt—an unjust insinuation, for no man had laid out himself more for the good of Jerusalem than he had done. H.—This charge of high treason kept out of view the counsel of the Lord, and gave no credit to Jeremiah's claim of being sent of God to say these very words. It was not strange that, from their wicked standpoint, they should take the view they did. The strangeness and the guilt all lie in their disregard of the manifest proofs that Jeremiah spake from the Lord. The worst fact in their case was, that they had no heart to hear what God had said. In this lay their damning sin. Most righteously this became their ruin. H. C. 5. The king is not he that can do anything against you.** The king evidently speaks this in disgust with the princes for endeavoring to frustrate his clemency. He had once rescued Jeremiah out of their hands, and taken him under his royal protection. But his prerogative, he tells them, was likely to avail but little, when opposed by their obstinate and repeated importunities. The power was in reality theirs, and not his. Blayney. 7-9. Among all the royal household, and throughout the king's court, no one is found to exhibit the spirit of the good Samaritan save this Ethiopian eunuch. The subsequent notice of him (39:15-18) shows that he put his trust in the Lord, a man of true piety, whom the Lord graciously preserved amid the general slaughter of the king's household. To all the other discomforts and miseries of the prophet's situation was added hunger. On this plea specially the eunuch urges the king to order his release, for at this time no bread remained in the city (cf. 37:21). H. C.—Ebed-melech was an Ethiopian, a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, and yet had in him more humanity, and more divinity too, than native Israelites had. Christ found more faith among Gentiles than among Jews. Ebed-melech lived in a wicked court and in a very corrupt, degenerate age, and yet had a great sense both of equity and piety. God has His remnant in all places, among all sorts. There were saints even in Cesar's household. H. 17,18. This message the prophet had rerepeatedly given to the king and to his people. The Lord had fully purposed that the nation, unless saved by repentance, must fall before the Chaldean power. Their national pride repelled this advice; their infatuation plunged them deep in destruction. H. C.—The advice of Jeremiah clearly proves that the destruction of Zedekiah was not so determined but that he might have prevented it. The Divine threatenings and predictions and God's knowledge of futurity do not deprive men of their liberty, since the evils with which they are threatened are brought on them by their own fault. Ostervald. 19,20. Some of Zedekiah's people had already gone over to the Chaldeans against the will of their king, but according to the counsel of the Lord. The king anticipates and fears their taunts if he were to humble himself so low as to follow them. They might say, "And you too have come at last!" He is afraid the Chaldeans will deliver him into the hands of those Jews whom he would fain have punished for treason, and from whom he might therefore not unnaturally fear rough treatment. But it is always safe to obey God—a lesson which this king, alas! was slow to learn. H. C. 20-23. The pressing importunity with which Jeremiah followed the advice he had given the king. He assures him that if he would comply with the will of God herein the thing he feared should not come upon him (verse 20). Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the Lord, because it is His voice, so it shall be well unto thee. But he tells him what would be the consequence if he would not obey. He himself would fall into the hands of the Chaldeans, as implacable enemies, whom he might now make his friends, by throwing himself into their hands. H. 24-27. It was due to his timid fear of his princes (a fear unworthy of a king) that he devised this scheme for suppressing a part of the truth as to what had passed between himself and Jeremiah. A somewhat nice question of morals arises in cases of this sort on the point whether we are bound to tell the whole truth to men who demand it for a bad purpose; and if not, how far it is morally right to give or to favor the impression that we have told the whole truth when we have not. The latter is really the delicate point, for we readily assent to the doctrine that we are not bound, even though questioned, to tell all we know to all men under all circumstances. 28. So Jeremiah abode in the court of the prison until the day that Jerusalem was taken: and he was there when Jerusalem was taken. This "court of the prison" was probably a less severe and close confinement than either "his dungeon and cabin" in the house of Jonathan (37:15, 16, 20) or the pit of mire, known as "the dungeon of Malchiah" (38:6-13). The original words might well be rendered, "The court of the guard-house." In this state his friends seem to have had access to him, and he announced to them the words of the Lord. (Compare chap. 37:21 with chap. 38:1-3). H. C. Jeremiah's Purchase of a Field. His Prayer. His Prediction of Jerusalem's Overthrow and Subsequent Rebuilding. Embodied with the History, Vol. VII., page 436. 21:1 THE word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when king Zedekiah sent unto him Pashhur the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying, 2 Inquire, I pray thee, of the LORD for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us: peradventure the LORD will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us. 3, 4 Then said Jeremiah unto them, Thus shall ye say to Zedekiah: Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans which besiege you, without 5 the walls, and I will gather them into the midst of this city. And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in 6 great wrath. And I will smile the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall 7 die of a great pestilence. And afterward, saith the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, even such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have 8 mercy. And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I set before you 9 the way of life and the way of death. He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth away to the Chal- 10 deans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. For I have set my face upon this city for evil, and not for good, saith the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. 11, 12 And touching the house of the king of Judah, hear ye the word of the LORD: O house of David, thus saith the LORD, Execute judgement in the morning, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go forth like fire, and burn that none can 13 quench it, because of the evil of your doings. Behold, I am against thee, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the rock of the plain, saith the LORD: ye which say, Who shall come down 14 against us? or who shall enter into our habitations? and I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the LORD: and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is round about her. 37:1 And Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king, instead of Coniah the son of Jehoi- 2 akim, whom Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah. But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, did hearken unto the words of the LORD, which he spake by the prophet Jeremiah. 3 And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Ma- aseiah the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now unto the LORD our God for us. 4 Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people: for they had not put him into 5 prison. And Pharaoh's army was come forth out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that 6 besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they brake up from Jerusalem. Then came the 7 word of the LORD unto the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Thus shall ye say to the king of Judah, that sent you unto me to inquire of me; Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land. 8 And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city; and they shall take it, and 9 burn it with fire. Thus saith the LORD: Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans 10 shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire. 11 And it came to pass that when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem 12 for fear of Pharaoh's army, then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land 13 of Benjamin, to receive his portion there, in the midst of the people. And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he laid hold on Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou 14 fallest away to the Chaldeans. Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chal- deans; but he hearkened not to him: so Irijah laid hold on Jeremiah, and brought him to 15 the princes. And the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in 16 prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison. When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon house, and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there 17 many days; then Zedekiah the king sent, and fetched him: and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from the LORD? And Jeremiah said, There is. He 18 said also, Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. Moreover Jeremiah said unto king Zedekiah, Wherein have I sinned against thee, or against thy servants, or 19 against this people, that ye have put me in prison? Where now are your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against 20 this land? And now hear, I pray thee, O my lord the king: let my supplication, I pray thee, be accepted before thee; that thou cause me not to return to the house of Jonathan the 21 scribe, lest I die there. Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard, and they gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city was spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard. 28:1 And Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucel the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah spake unto all the people, saying, Thus saith the LORD, He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey, and he shall live. Thus saith the LORD, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. Then the princes said unto the king, Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; forasmuch as he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words unto them: for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt. And Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand: for the king is not he that can do anything against you. Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the king's son, that was in the court of the guard: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: and Jeremiah sank in the mire. Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an eunuch, which was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon; the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin; Ebed-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spake to the king, saying, My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die in the place where he is because of the famine: for there is no more bread in the city. Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he die. So Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords. And Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and took him up out of the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard. Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet unto him into the third entry that is in the house of the LORD: and the king said unto Jeremiah, I will ask thee a thing; hide nothing from me. Then Jeremiah said unto Zedekiah, If I declare it unto thee, will thou not surely put me to death? and if I give thee counsel, thou wilt not hearken unto me. So Zedekiah the king swore secretly unto Jeremiah, saying, As the LORD liveth, that made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, neither will I give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life. Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: If thou wilt go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire; and thou shalt live, and thine house: but if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon's princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand. And Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen away to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me. But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver thee. Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the LORD, in that which I speak unto thee: so it shall be well with thee, and thy soul shall live. But if thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that the LORD hath shewed me: Behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes, and those women shall say, Thy familiar friends have set thee on, and have prevailed over thee: now that thy feet are sunk in the mire, they are turned away back. And they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans: and thou shalt not escape out of their hand, but shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire. Then said Zedekiah unto Jeremiah, Let no man know of these words, and thou shalt not die. But if the princes hear that I have talked with thee, and they come unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare unto us now what thou hast said unto the king; hide it not from us, and we will not put thee to death: also what the king said unto thee: then thou shalt say unto them, I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not cause me to return to Jonathan's house, to die there. Then came all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him: and he told them according to all these words that the king had commanded. So they left off speaking with him; for the matter was not perceived. So Jeremiah abode in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken. The part taken by the prophet Jeremiah, and the cause of his imprisonment. It is certain that Jeremiah sided throughout with the Babylonish party, not only in Josiah's reign, but through the succeeding reigns of Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. He could not but see the broken and iniquitous condition of his people. And this, with his inspired foresight of God's chastening purposes, led him to use his utmost endeavor that Judah's kings and people should not unnecessarily exasperate the Babylonish monarch. He would save them from all possible aggravation of wickedness as well as useless resistance, and thus from consequent suffering. Hence the enmity of the Egyptian party in the capital, often during the twenty years of these closing reigns, endangered the prophet's life. Protected he was, however, up to the last siege of Jerusalem; partly by his manifest prophetic office, and partly by the friends God raised up—by the kings themselves, or by priestly and noble defenders. His imprisonment occurred toward the end of Zedekiah's reign, about eighteen months before the final crisis of the kingdom, when Jerusalem was destroyed and the remaining people carried captive to Babylon. Zedekiah, a weak rather than wicked king, yielding to the Egyptian party, had been persuaded to renounce subjection to the king of Babylon, and enter into alliance with Egypt. B.—It is evident that Zedekiah was well affected toward Jeremiah; for he thrice asked his advice, first by a public embassy (21:1; 37:3) and subsequently in secret (37:17; 38:14); but he was far too weak a man to be capable of energetic action in his behalf, and so allowed him to be imprisoned and persecuted. The city had been besieged by the Chaldeans, and was tottering to its fall, when the approach of the Egyptian army gave the inhabitants hope of aid; and for a short time the Chaldeans departed from Jerusalem. Then Zedekiah sent to Jeremiah, asking him to pray unto the Lord for them, probably expecting that he would intercede for the city, as Isaiah had done in the days of Hezekiah (Isa. 37:6). Jeremiah's answer was more unfavorable than he had given before. It was that the Egyptians would accomplish nothing, and that the Chaldeans would return and take the city. The princes were angry with Jeremiah, smote him, and put him in prison. Zedekiah, on the renewal of the siege, sent and took him out, and secretly ordered him brought to his palace, where he again consulted him, but with the same result. Jeremiah prays for milder treatment. Zedekiah, who was of a kindly disposition and remembered Jeremiah as an honored prophet in the days of his father, now gives him roomy quarters in the court of the guard, where he wrote the cheerful prophecy contained in chaps. 30-33; and as provisions were growing scarce, the king ordered that a loaf of bread should be given him every day. The purpose of the princes was frustrated by his removal to the guard-house, as there his friends had free access to him. B. C. Chap. 21. This chapter contains the first of those prophecies, which were delivered by Jeremiah subsequent to the revolt of Zedekiah, and the breaking out of the war thereupon; and which are continued on to the taking of Jerusalem. The terms of this message seem to imply that the king of Babylon had but just commenced his hostilities against Judah, of which Zedekiah informs the prophet, as of a matter that might not have come to his certain knowledge; and desires him to intercede with God, that He would divert the storm by some such extraordinary interposition as He had been wont to manifest in favor of His people. Blayney.—The Lord's answer through His prophet was very categorical, decisive and appalling, still leaving an open door, however, for hope on the one sole condition that the king and his people would thoroughly repent and reform their ways. Even at this late hour salvation was possible on these only righteous conditions. 8-10. This gives the people to understand distinctly that the city is doomed to destruction, and that their only hope of personal safety lies in going out and giving themselves up to the Chaldeans. This is a clear illustration of the language elsewhere used of the moral choice which the Lord sets before men between the way of life and the way of death—e.g., De. 30:15-20 and Josh. 24:14-24. H. C. 8. Set before you the way of life and the way of death.** The impression of every scene, of every lesson, of every folly is pushing you on to some decision—whether you will serve God or not, whether you will consecrate your life to its true end or not. On, on rolls the tide of hours, days and years, awifter and stronger in current, setting more resistless toward the cataract. Moment flows into moment, melts into the mass and is lost to view, but every drop swells the flood that presses you to the final issue. Gillett. There are two courses in life. There are but two. The two are utterly irreconcilable and discordant. You cannot have them both. It must be one thing or the other. The choice is really made, degradingly and disgracefully by the very act of refraining from choosing. But if you would be men, choose, determine! I do not need to contemplate the possibility of anybody here saying, "You have set before me life and death, and I solemnly and deliberately choose death;" but I beseech you, take care that you do not slip into the choice of the worse part before you know where you are, and that years of careless yielding to circumstances and temptations do not at last rob you of the power to resolve that your life shall ever be otherwise moulded than by external forces. A. M. Oh, if we could realize to ourselves who we are, and where I placed on what a mighty eminence of blessing; raised to what a height of privilege and hope; walking along what a narrow ridge of duty; beset by what terrible enemies; helped by what a wonderful indwelling Presence; travelling onward with a steady pace, which no power or skill of man can check or stay, to what a certain, an irreversible, an endless doom! Like a ship pressing with full sail into an unknown sea, with a thick mist around her, we are pressing into the future: we cannot stay—we cannot pause—we can furl no sails—we can let out no anchors; on we must go, and on we are going to find our rock, our quicksand or our harbor. Bp. Moberly. Chap. 37. The date of this chapter falls during the reign of Zedekiah, and within the last eighteen months of his reign—i.e., within the period of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. It refers specially to the historic fact that during the progress of this siege the king of Egypt approached with an army for the relief of his own allies. Whereupon the Chaldeans raised the siege and marched against the Egyptians. In the result the Egyptians returned to their own country. The Chaldeans reinvested Jerusalem and ultimately took it. Precisely at what stage of the siege this diversion by the Egyptians occurred or how long the siege was suspended in consequence, we are not told. While they were absent Jeremiah took the opportunity to leave the city, was arrested at the city gate, and thrown into close confinement. 6-10. The imperilled Jews and their king were ready to grasp the faintest shadow of hope from this approach of an Egyptian army. But the Lord was against them. Hence no earthly power could save them from destruction. It was of the Lord's mercy that He promptly and solemnly warned them against deceiving themselves with this vain hope. Such hope lessened the pressure of motive on their minds to repent before God and seek His favor. Hence the promptness and decision of this assurance that help from that quarter was vain. H. C. 12-21. We have here a further account concerning Jeremiah, who relates more passages concerning himself than any other of the prophets; for the histories of the lives and sufferings of God's ministers have been very serviceable to the Church, as well as their preaching and writing. H. 12. Then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem. The investing army having withdrawn, communication was again opened between the city and the adjacent country. To go into the land of Benjamin. Jeremiah's patrimony lay in Anathoth, in the tribe of Benjamin (Jer. 1:1), which was one of the cities assigned to the priests in the time of Joshua (Josh. 21:17, 18). To receive his portion there**, or, "from thence." It was evidently some matter of business connected with his paternal estate. It could hardly have been his purpose to remain in so exposed a situation, when the Chaldeans should return as he confidently expected (Jer. 37:8-10). Jeremiah steadfastly insisted upon sharing the fortunes of his countrymen even after the fall of the city, in spite of the tempting offers that were made to him of a comfortable home in Babylon (Jer. 40:4, 6); and it is not probable that he meant to desert them now. 15. And the princes smote him, and put him in prison.** In spite of his protestations, he was adjudged guilty, beaten and imprisoned. W. H. G.—The charge of intended desertion was a mere excuse for wreaking their malice on him. They hated Jeremiah because he had steadily opposed the popular determination to fight, and had foretold disaster. Add to that that he had held up a high standard of religion and morality to a corrupt and idolatrous people, and his "unpopularity" is sufficiently explained. A. M. 16. When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon house.** Literally, as in the margin, "house of the pit." This pit, or cistern, is not further described, except as a place where Jeremiah was likely to perish (verse 20). The miserable plight in which he was in another filthy dungeon, into which he was subsequently thrust, is detailed somewhat at length in Jer. 38:6 sqq. W. H. G. The princes were the power behind the throne. They hated Jeremiah. Although they might differ in many things from the priests and the false prophets, they agreed with them in detesting this stern, truth-telling man, as Pilate and Herod were made friends by their common hostility to Christ. The princes, too, held the sympathies of the populace, for all were united in a frenzy of fear and in opposition to the man who deservedly condemned them all. The hatred was political as well as personal and moral; and political passions are very likely to become virulent. The princes still clung, with stubborn conservatism, to the exhausted protection of Egypt. Jeremiah, instructed by God, counselled temporary surrender to Babylon; and no wonder, since that would be no more than a recognition of existing facts. It must be remembered, too, that the courtly party remaining in Jerusalem and Judah was only a remnant. The strongest of the princes had been deported to Babylon, where, with Jehoiachin and his household, they remained respected in imprisonment. Those left behind were but refuse. It is not surprising that these weak, base men were nagging the one great citizen surviving in the kingdom. Ezekiel and Daniel were among the exiles in Babylon. Jeremiah was practically alone in Judah. The party that had formerly been friendly to him was disintegrated and scattered. As for the rest, gnats, as they prefer carrion, enjoy the attempt to worry a lion to death. But the lion is, after all, the hero of that whole period of Hebrew history. Jeremiah belongs to the rare company who, when they do well, suffer for it, and yet take it patiently (1 Pet. 2 : 20). They are too good for this world, but acceptable with God. Persecution is now uncommon; the world has softened and grown wiser. Perhaps the average Christian, too, is less scrupulous and less brave. But it is still a poor type of piety which is popular with worldliness. McPherson. 17. After many days' confinement in this horrible dungeon underground, the king took him out and asked him secretly if there was any word from the Lord. The prophet's circumstances were at this time such as would most thoroughly test his loyalty to his Divine Lord. He had every earthly inducement to please the king; yet he fearlessly announced the king's terrible doom from the Lord, "Thou shalt be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon." Prison discipline had not unnerved his steadfast purpose to be true to his God. He had an earnest personal plea to make for his liberty and his life. He wisely put this plea on its own bottom—an humble appeal to the king's sense of justice and feelings of compassion. He could not swerve from his fidelity to God for the sake of even liberty or life. 18,19. What is my offence? I have only told you the truth, one proof of which you may yourself see; for where are those false prophets that gainsayed my words and belied the Lord, saying, "The king of Babylon shall not come up against this city and land?" Let the king look at the facts, and he will see that so far all my predictions have proved true. Why, then, should he count me his enemy for telling him the truth? H. C.—In Jeremiah's answer we may note, as equally prominent and beautifully blended, respect, submission, consciousness of peril and impending death, and unshaken boldness. He knew that his life was at the disposal of the capricious, feeble Zedekiah. He bows before him as his subject, and brings his "supplication;" but not one jot of his message will he abate, nor smooth down its terribleness an atom. He repeats as unfalteringly as ever the assurance that the king of Babylon will take the city. He asserts his own innocence as regards king and courtiers and people; and he asks what has become of all the smooth-tongued prophets of prosperity, as if he had bid the king look over the city wall and see the tokens of their lies and of Jeremiah's truth in the investing lines of the all but victorious enemy. Such a combination of perfect meekness and perfect courage, unstained loyalty to his king, and supreme obedience to his God, was only possible to a man who lived in very close communion with Jehovah, and had learned thereby to fear none else, because he feared Him so well, and to reverence all else whom He had set in places of reverence. True courage, of the pattern which befits God's servants, is ever gentle. Bluster is the sign of weakness. A. M. 21. The king acceded to his request. By the king's command Jeremiah was committed "into the court of the guard." This was a court connected with a portion of the palace, which was used as a prison (Jer. 32 : 2). He was still in custody, but in much more comfortable quarters than those which he had previously occupied. W. H. G. And they gave him daily a loaf of bread. He had interest enough in the prophet to interfere for his comfort, and to have him put into better quarters in the palace and provided with a "circle" (a round loaf) of bread out of Baker Street, as long as there was any in the city—not a very long time. But why did he do so much, and not do more? He knew that Jeremiah was innocent, and that his word was God's; and what he should have done was to have shaken off his masterful "servants," followed his conscience, and obeyed God. Why did he not? Because he was a coward, infirm of purpose, and therefore unstable as water. He is another of the tragic examples with which all life as well as Scripture is studded, of how much evil is possible to a weak character. In this world, where there are so many temptations to be bad, no man will be good who cannot strongly say "No." The virtue of strength of will may be but like the rough fence round young trees to keep cattle from browsing on them and east winds from blighting them. But the fence is needed, if the trees are to grow. "To be weak is to be miserable," and sinful, too, generally. "Whom resist" must be the motto for all noble, God-like, and God pleasing life. A. M. 38 : 1-4. Jeremiah persists in his plain preaching; what he had many a time said, he still says (verse 3), This city shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon; though it hold out long, it will be taken at last; so that every man might have his own life given him for a prey if he would be advised (verse 2). The princes persist in their malice against Jeremiah. They represented him to the king as a dangerous man, disaffected to his country and government; he seeks not the welfare of this people, but the hurt—an unjust insinuation, for no man had laid out himself more for the good of Jerusalem than he had done. H.—This charge of high treason kept out of view the counsel of the Lord, and gave no credit to Jeremiah's claim of being sent of God to say these very words. It was not strange that, from their wicked standpoint, they should take the view they did. The strangeness and the guilt all lie in their disregard of the manifest proofs that Jeremiah spake from the Lord. The worst fact in their case was, that they had no heart to hear what God had said. In this lay their damning sin. Most righteously this became their ruin. H. C. 5. The king is not he that can do anything against you.** The king evidently speaks this in disgust with the princes for endeavoring to frustrate his clemency. He had once rescued Jeremiah out of their hands, and taken him under his royal protection. But his prerogative, he tells them, was likely to avail but little, when opposed by their obstinate and repeated importunities. The power was in reality theirs, and not his. Blayney. 7-9. Among all the royal household, and throughout the king's court, no one is found to exhibit the spirit of the good Samaritan save this Ethiopian eunuch. The subsequent notice of him (39:15-18) shows that he put his trust in the Lord, a man of true piety, whom the Lord graciously preserved amid the general slaughter of the king's household. To all the other discomforts and miseries of the prophet's situation was added hunger. On this plea specially the eunuch urges the king to order his release, for at this time no bread remained in the city (cf. 37:21). H. C.—Ebed-melech was an Ethiopian, a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, and yet had in him more humanity, and more divinity too, than native Israelites had. Christ found more faith among Gentiles than among Jews. Ebed-melech lived in a wicked court and in a very corrupt, degenerate age, and yet had a great sense both of equity and piety. God has His remnant in all places, among all sorts. There were saints even in Cesar's household. H. 17,18. This message the prophet had rerepeatedly given to the king and to his people. The Lord had fully purposed that the nation, unless saved by repentance, must fall before the Chaldean power. Their national pride repelled this advice; their infatuation plunged them deep in destruction. H. C.—The advice of Jeremiah clearly proves that the destruction of Zedekiah was not so determined but that he might have prevented it. The Divine threatenings and predictions and God's knowledge of futurity do not deprive men of their liberty, since the evils with which they are threatened are brought on them by their own fault. Ostervald. 19,20. Some of Zedekiah's people had already gone over to the Chaldeans against the will of their king, but according to the counsel of the Lord. The king anticipates and fears their taunts if he were to humble himself so low as to follow them. They might say, "And you too have come at last!" He is afraid the Chaldeans will deliver him into the hands of those Jews whom he would fain have punished for treason, and from whom he might therefore not unnaturally fear rough treatment. But it is always safe to obey God—a lesson which this king, alas! was slow to learn. H. C. 20-23. The pressing importunity with which Jeremiah followed the advice he had given the king. He assures him that if he would comply with the will of God herein the thing he feared should not come upon him (verse 20). Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the Lord, because it is His voice, so it shall be well unto thee. But he tells him what would be the consequence if he would not obey. He himself would fall into the hands of the Chaldeans, as implacable enemies, whom he might now make his friends, by throwing himself into their hands. H. 24-27. It was due to his timid fear of his princes (a fear unworthy of a king) that he devised this scheme for suppressing a part of the truth as to what had passed between himself and Jeremiah. A somewhat nice question of morals arises in cases of this sort on the point whether we are bound to tell the whole truth to men who demand it for a bad purpose; and if not, how far it is morally right to give or to favor the impression that we have told the whole truth when we have not. The latter is really the delicate point, for we readily assent to the doctrine that we are not bound, even though questioned, to tell all we know to all men under all circumstances. 28. So Jeremiah abode in the court of the prison until the day that Jerusalem was taken: and he was there when Jerusalem was taken. This "court of the prison" was probably a less severe and close confinement than either "his dungeon and cabin" in the house of Jonathan (37:15, 16, 20) or the pit of mire, known as "the dungeon of Malchiah" (38:6-13). The original words might well be rendered, "The court of the guard-house." In this state his friends seem to have had access to him, and he announced to them the words of the Lord. (Compare chap. 37:21 with chap. 38:1-3). H. C. Jeremiah's Purchase of a Field. His Prayer. His Prediction of Jerusalem's Overthrow and Subsequent Rebuilding. Embodied with the History, Vol. VII., page 436. 1. And it came to pass when Jerusalem was taken, (in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and besieged it; in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city:) that all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon. And it came to pass that when Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he gave judgement upon him. Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon. Called also Jeconiah and Coniah. The Principal Deportation to Babylonia. 8. And the Chaldeans burned the king's house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem. 9 Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the residue of the people that remained in the city, the deserters also, that fell away to him, and the residue of the people that remained. 10 But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time. 11 Now Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan 12 the captain of the guard, saying, Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto 13 thee. So Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard sent, and Nebushazban, Rab-saris, and Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, and all the 14 chief officers of the king of Babylon; they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guard, and committed him unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, that he should carry him home: so he dwelt among the people. 15 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, while he was shut up in the court 16 of the guard, saying, Go, and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Thus and the bowls; that which was of gold, in gold, and that which was of silver, in silver, 20 the captain of the guard took away. The two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve brazen bulls that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made for the house of the LORD: the brass of all these vessels was 21 without weight. And as for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a line of twelve cubits did compass it; and the thickness thereof was four fingers: 22 it was hollow. And a chapiter of brass was upon it; and the height of the one chapiter was five cubits, with network and pomegranates upon the chapiter round about, all of brass: and the second pillar also had like 23 unto these, and pomegranates. And there were ninety and six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates were an hundred 24 upon the network round about. And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the door: 25 and out of the city he took an officer that was set over the men of war; and seven men of them that saw the king's face, which were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of the host, who mustered the people of the land; and threescore men of the people of the land, that were found in 26 the midst of the city. And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to 27 Riblah. And the king of Babylon smote them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried 28 away captive out of his land. This is the people whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year three thousand 29 Jews and three and twenty: in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred 30 thirty and two persons: in the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadrezzar Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty and five persons: all the persons were four thousand and six hundred. 40 : 1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, which were carried away captive unto Bab- 2 ylon. And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said unto him, The LORD thy God pronounced this evil upon this place : and the LORD hath brought it, and done according as he spake ; because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore 4 this thing is come upon you. And now, behold, I loose thee this day from the chains which are upon thine hand. If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee ; but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear : behold, all the land is before thee ; whither it seemeth good and convenient unto thee to go, 5 thither go. Now while he was not yet gone back, Go back then, said he, to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon hath made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people : or go wheresoever it seemeth convenient unto thee to go. So the captain of the guard gave him victuals and a present, and let him 6 go. Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and dwell with him among the people that were left in the land. 7 Now when all the captains of the forces which were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed unto him men, and women, and children, and of the poorest of the land, 8 of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon ; then they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netopha- 9 the Maacathite, they and their men. And Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore unto them and to their men, saying, Fear not to serve the Chaldeans : dwell in the 10 land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the Chaldeans, which shall come unto us : but ye, gather ye wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your 11 cities that ye have taken. Likewise when all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and that were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of 12 Ahikam, the son of Shaphan ; then all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits very much. 13 Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were in the 14 fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, and said unto him, Dost thou know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take thy life? But 15 Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not. Then Johanan the son of Kareah spake to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Let me go, I pray thee, and I will slay Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it : wherefore should he take thy life, that all the Jews 16 which are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said unto Johanan the son of Kareah, Thou shalt not do this thing: for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael. 41:1 Now it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, and one of the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they did eat bread together in Mizpah. Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him, even with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans that were found there, even the men of war. And it came to pass the second day after he had slain Gedaliah, and no man knew it, that there came certain from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with oblations and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the LORD. And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and it came to pass, as he met them, he said unto them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. And it was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he, and the men that were with him. But ten men were found among them that said unto Ishmael, Shay us not: for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey. So he forbare, and slew them not among their brethren. Now the pit wherein Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had slain, by the side of Gedaliah, (the same was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel,) Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with them that were slain. Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people that were in Mizpah, even the king's daughters, and all the people that remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam: Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of Ammon. 11. But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done, then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon. Now it came to pass that when all the people which were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, then they were glad. So all the people that Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah cast about and returned, and went unto Johanan the son of Kareah. But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon. Then took Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after that he had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, even the men of war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought again from Gibeon: and they departed, and dwelt in Geruth Chimham, which is by Beth-lehem, to go to enter into Egypt, because of the Chaldeans: for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land. 42:1 Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest, came near, and said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we pray thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the LORD thy God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us: that the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we should walk, and the thing that we should do. Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the LORD your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass that whatsoever thing the LORD shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you. Then they said to Jeremiah, The LORD be a true and faithful witness amongst us, if we do not even according to all the word wherewith the LORD thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God. 7,8. And it came to pass after ten days, that the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah. Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces which were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto whom ye sent me to present your supplication before him: If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you. Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saith the LORD: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. And I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy upon you, and cause you to return to your own land. But if ye say, We will not dwell in this land; so that ye obey not the voice of the LORD your God; saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell: now therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn there; then it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye are afraid, shall follow hard after you there in Egypt; 17 and there ye shall die. So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: and none 18 of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As mine anger and my fury hath been poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my fury be poured forth upon you, when ye shall enter into Egypt: and ye shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; 19 and ye shall see this place no more. The LORD hath spoken concerning you, O remnant of 20 Judah, Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have testified unto you this day. For ye have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for ye sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God 21 shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it; and I have this day declared it to you; but ye have not obeyed the voice of the LORD your God in any thing for the which he hath sent 22 me unto you. Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go to sojourn there. 43:1 And it came to pass that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the LORD their God, wherewith the LORD their God had sent him to 2 them, even all these words, then spake Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the LORD our 3 God hath not sent thee to say, Ye shall not go into Egypt to sojourn there: but Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us, for to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that 4 they may put us to death, and carry us away captives to Babylon. So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the LORD, 5 to dwell in the land of Judah. But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all the nations whither they 6 had been driven to sojourn in the land of Judah; the men, and the women, and the children, and the king's daughters, and every person that Nebuzzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and 7 Baruch the son of Neriah; and they came into the land of Egypt; for they obeyed not the 8 voice of the LORD: and they came even to Tahpanhes. Then came the word of the LORD unto 9 Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in mortar in the brickwork, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men 10 of Judah; and say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne 11 upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And he shall come, and shall smile the land of Egypt; such as are for death shall be given to death, 12 and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd put- 13 teth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace. He shall also break the pillars of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall be burn with fire. 44:1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwelt in the land of Egypt, which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of 2 Pathros, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah; and, behold, this day 3 they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein; because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other 4 gods, whom they knew not, neither they, nor ye, nor your fathers. Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this 5 abominable thing that I hate. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from 6 their wickedness, to burn no incense unto other gods. Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and 7 they are wasted and desolate, as it is this day. Therefore now thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, out of the midst of Judah, to have 8 you none remaining; in that ye provoke me unto anger with the works of your hands, burn- ing incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye be gone to sojourn; that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? 9 Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your 10 wives, which they committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem? They are not humbled even unto this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my 11 statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, even to cut off all 12 Judah. And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall; they shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be an execration, 13 and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pesti- lence: so that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return save such as shall escape. 15. Then all the men which knew that their wives burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great assembly, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, 16 in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the 17 name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and 18 were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed 19 by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out 20 drink offerings unto her, without our husbands? Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, even to all the people which had given him that answer, saying, 21 The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD 22 remember them, and came it not into his mind? so that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitation, as it is this day. Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as it is this day. 24 Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women, Hear the word of the 25 LORD, all Judah that are in the land of Egypt: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: establish then your 26 vows, and perform your vows. Therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the LORD, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, 27 saying, as the LORD GOD liveth. Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the 28 famine, until there be an end of them. And they that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose word shall stand, mine, 29 or theirs. And this shall be the sign unto you, saith the LORD, that I will punish you in this 30 place, that ye may know that my words shall surely stand against you for evil: thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life. BEFORE pursuing the story of the Jews at Babylon to the end of the Captivity, we may conclude the history of Judea itself during the last twenty-five years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (n.c. 586-561), comprising the fate of the people left behind, and the fortunes of Jeremiah. P. S.—Nothing could more effectually show the hopeless condition of the people, and their unfitness for self-government, than this brief narrative of events which followed the destruction of Jerusalem. The detailed history is given in Jeremiah, chaps. 40-44. J. O.—These five chapters contain a particular account of what passed in the land of Judah from the taking of Jerusalem to the retreat of the people into Egypt, and the prophecies of Jeremiah concerning them there. Blayney. #### Outline of the History. A remnant of the people, among whom was Jeremiah, who was by Nebuchadnezzar's express command treated with the greatest respect (Jer. 39: 11-14; 40: 1-6), was left in the land; and fields and vineyards were assigned to them by Nebuzaradan (39: 10). Nebuchadnezzar placed over them as his viceroy Gedaliah, a son of the prince Ahikam, who appears (2 K. 22: 12) in high official position under Josiah, and to whom Jeremiah owed his deliverance when accused under Jehoiakim (Jer. 24: 24, cf. verse 16). Gedaliah, with a small Chaldee garrison, took up his abode at Mizpah, in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. After the departure of the Chaldee army a great number of Jews, who had by reason of the war been scattered in the neighboring countries, returned to Judea. Certain Jewish captains also, and others who had borne arms against the Chaldeans, settled at Mizpah, where they were kindly received by Gedaliah, who promised them pardon and protection if they would submit to the Chaldeans. The viceroyship of Gedaliah, however, which had held out to a considerable portion of the people the prospect of the peaceable possession of their native soil, lasted only two months. One of these captains, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, of the seed royal, instigated by Baalis, king of the Ammonites, placed himself at the head of a conspiracy against Gedaliah, who, not esteeming so base a treachery possible, and therefore rejecting the warning given him of it, was, together with the Chaldeans and Jews dwelling with him at Mizpah, slain during a banquet at which he was entertaining the conspirators. The Jews, who were hardly yet settled, fearing the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, determined, in spite of the warnings of Jeremiah, to emigrate to Egypt, whither the prophet also followed them. Surrendering themselves in Egypt to the worship of idols, to the neglecting of which they attributed the misfortunes of Judea (see the remarkable passage, Jer. 44 : 17 sqq.), Jeremiah was here also constrained to exercise his office of reprover, and probably terminated his storm-tossed life in that country (chaps. 40-44 belong to this period). His predictions (43 : 8-14 ; 44 : 30) were fulfilled, for in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem (584), Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt, slew its king, and again carried away a host of Jews to Babylon. Whether this is the deportation mentioned (Jer. 51 : 30), or whether the latter refers to a remnant still existing in Judea, cannot be determined. At all events, Judea lay desolate (cf. Zech. 7 : 14 ; 2 Chron. 36 : 21), so far as it was not occupied by the neighboring nations, particularly the Philistines and Edomites. The latter especially, who had long coveted the territory of Israel (Ezek. 35 : 10), must have taken possession of the southern part of the country (see the Greek Ezra, the so-called third book of Esdras, 4 : 50). Oehler. Jer. 40 : 4-6. Here the captain of the guard obeys the instructions which he had from his sovereign, as stated chap. 39 : 12, giving the prophet his free choice to go with the captives to Babylon, or to remain with the remnant in their own land. In the former case he had the fullest assurance of kind treatment and even of somewhat distinguished favors. In our imperfect human view, it would have been much for his comfort and welfare to have gone with the captives. His sympathies were strongly with them—not with this company alone, but with those who had gone before, as his letter to them (chap. 29) shows. He knew that they were the better portion of the Jewish people (chap. 24), and that the moral hopes of the nation lay in them ; also that his own personal safety was strongly guaranteed in that country. Yet, notwithstanding all these considerations, he chose to remain with these poor, weak, and, as it proved, morally unreliable and treacherous people. Probably he had some intimations that this was the Lord's will, so he met this slow martyrdom with his usual moral heroism. The sequel will show that he had bitter trials with this remnant—the refuse of the Jewish population. This Mizpah was near Jerusalem, the same which appears in the history of Samuel. 9-12. During the eighteen months' siege of Jerusalem many Jews would naturally flee their country and take refuge in countries adjacent. These now returned and placed themselves under the protection of Gedaliah and the Chaldean sovereign. 13-16. Johanan and his fellow-officers became aware of the foul conspiracy projected by the king of the Ammonites, to be executed by Ishmael against the life of Gedaliah. Unfortunately this Gedaliah, a good, well-meaning man, was not shrewd enough for his dangerous position, but had allowed himself to be deceived by this foul assassin. Hence he would not give heed to these forewarnings of danger, nor allow Ishmael to be put to death. H. C. 41 : 1, 2. Gedaliah had been warned by Johanan of Ishmael's intentions. Ishmael, it appears, was in league with the Ammonites, and had been incited by the Ammonitish king, Baalis, to assassinate Gedaliah. Johanan offered to crush the treason by himself killing Ishmael ; but Gedaliah, not believing his information, would not consent. The circumstances of the murder were, according to Oriental notions, of the extremest atrocity. Ishmael and his ten friends, with their retinues, professed to come on a visit to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and were there hospitably entertained by him (verse 1). Having " eaten of his salt," they suddenly rose upon him, slew him with his immediate attendants, and then attacking the Chaldean garrison of the place, put every man to the sword (verses 2, 3). B. C.—The murder of Gedaliah gave occasion to the fast of the seventh month, which the Jews observed after their return from captivity. (See Zech. 7 : 5 ; 8 : 19.) 3. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him.** That is, all those that joined in opposing Ishmael and assisting Gedaliah ; for several of the commanders as well as the greatest part of the people were still left alive, as appears from the sequel of the story (verses 10, 11). W. Lowth. 41 : 5-43 : 13. Two days later a band of eighty mourners appeared on the frontier, from Shechem, and Shiloh, and Samaria, bringing offerings for the desolated house of God, a touching proof of the religious patriotism which was still to be found even in the most heathenized part of Israel. By a treacherous artifice, Ishmael slew them all but ten, and cast their bodies, with those of his former victims, into a pit which Asa had dug at Mizpah for a hiding-place during his war with Baasha, and which may rank in history with the Glacière of Avignon and the well of Cawnpore. He then collected the people who were at Mizpah, including the daughters of Zedekiah, who had been entrusted to Gedaliah's care, and carried them off as captives toward Ammon. He was pursued by the Jewish captains, headed by Johanan, the son of Kareah, the same who had ineffectually warned Gedaliah. They overtook him by the great waters at Gibeon, and rescued the captives, while Ishmael, with eight comrades, fled to Ammon. Then, instead of returning to Mizpah, they marched southward to Bethlehem, intending to take refuge in Egypt from Nebuchadnezzar's vengeance for the murder of his governor. First, however, they asked Jeremiah for counsel from Jehovah. In ten days the answer came, forbidding them to go to Egypt, promising them the protection of God if they remained, and assuring them that, if they persisted in departing, the famine, and sword, and pestilence, from which they fled, would overtake them in their new refuge. So faithful was the prophet to the long-standing command that the people should never, under any pressure, seek to return by the way of Egypt. His warning only brought upon him a charge of conspiring with Baruch to speak falsely in God's name; and both he and Baruch were carried to Egypt against their will, with all the remnant who had been left under Gedaliah. Many of the Jews had already taken refuge there during the whole time that Egypt was regarded as their help against Assyria. They now formed a large community, living at Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros—a community which had afterward an important history of its own. Meanwhile they fell into idolatry, and Jeremiah denounced both on them and on Egypt itself the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar—a prophecy echoed from the banks of the Euphrates by Ezekiel, whose warnings, promises and exhortations to the exiles at Babylon still kept pace with the current of events in Judea. P. S. 42:3. That the Lord thy God may shew us the way. It is the constant method of hypocrites to pretend a profound submission to the will of God, till it crosses their inclinations or interest. W. Lowth. 4-6. They reiterate their promise to obey the Lord's word—a promise previously implied but less distinctly expressed. So far all appears fair, and we are left in the hope that this little remnant will indeed learn wisdom from the bitter experiences of the past, and will now follow the Lord honestly and fully. 9-12. The answer was definite and plain, promising good if they would remain trustfully in the land of Judah, assuring them they need fear nothing from the Chaldeans, as to whom the Lord would amply protect them. There is a rich and touching significance in the phraseology, "I will show mercies unto you, that He may have mercy upon you." God will manifest His mercy toward them by inspiring compassion for them in the otherwise hard and selfish heart of the king of Babylon. 13-18. The other alternative is strongly put before them. If they will go down into Egypt despite the Lord's friendly counsel and earnest prohibition, the very evils they were seeking to escape would surely overtake them there for their destruction. They might think to escape war, famine and pestilence there; but assuredly they would not, but, on the contrary, would certainly meet them there in their most fearful forms. H. C. 19. The Lord hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah, go ye not into Egypt.** God commanded the Jews by Moses not to have any commerce with Egypt, that they might not practise the idolatrous customs of that country, with whose idolatries they had been defiled during their sojourning there. Afterward he often reproved them by His prophets for making alliances with Egypt. There were particular reasons at this time for so severe a prohibition, as the words here and in the context import—namely, because the Jews either learned several of their idolatrous practices from the Egyptians, or at least were confirmed in those evil customs by their example. (See chap. 44:8, 15; Ezek. 29:16.) Besides, it was the rival kingdom that contended for empire with the Babylonians. So the Jews going into Egypt for protection was in effect refusing to submit themselves to the king of Babylon, to whom God had decreed the government of Judea, and all the neighboring countries. W. Lowth. 19-22. The noticeable thing in these closing verses is, that the Lord distinctly assumes that the people were not honest in submitting this great question to Him for His direction. He knew their hearts before they audibly answered, and therefore anticipated the very words they were about to say. It was every way befitting that the Lord should set their real heart before their own eyes, and solemnly apprise them of the ruin they were bringing on themselves by their hypocrisy. It was the most hopeful moral means He could use to arrest them in their course of sin, and turn them to repentance. How fruitless and ruinous are such subterfuges and dissimulations toward God! When did mortal man ever attempt them and prosper! When has such a dissembler ever failed of bringing ruin on his own soul! H. C. 43:2. Azariah. Called Jezaniah, chap. 42:1. We may observe many like instances in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, of the same person being called by different names. W. Lowth. 2,3. They deny it to be a message from God. "Johanan, and all the proud men, said to Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely." See here the cause of their disobedience: it was pride; only by that comes contention both with God and man; they were proud men that gave the lie to the prophet. They could not bear the contradiction of their sentiments and the control of their designs—no, not by the Divine wisdom, by the Divine will itself. H.—Their hearts were fully set on going down into Egypt. Hence, they would not believe that the God they still professed to honor, and of whom they still spake as "the Lord our God," had forbidden it. This is one of the most common methods of resisting the authority of God and refusing Him obedience. In this case those proud men slanderously charged Baruch with inciting Jeremiah against them for the alleged purpose of delivering them over to the Chaldean power for death or captivity. In all this they fully assumed that nothing but hostility to their best interests could induce men to prefer submission to the Chaldeans rather than to the Egyptians. This political feeling of hostility to the former power and of trust in the latter was intensely strong, and strangely arrayed on the side of the wicked and proud against God and His true servants. H. C. 4-6. These proud men compelled even Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch his scribe to go along with them to Egypt; they carried them away as prisoners. H.—The warning was in vain. The message of Jeremiah was represented as only the outcome of his own and of Baruch's personal resentment; and the leaders of Judah carried the feeble remnant to Tahpanhes in Egypt—there yet again to hear the voice of the aged prophet announcing the coming judgment on the country where, in their unbelief and hardheartedness, they had sought shelter. So the last remnant of Judah had gone from the land. The Davidic rule had passed away, so far as merely earthly power was concerned. The Davidic kingdom to come would be wider, higher, deeper. It would embrace the brotherhood of man; it would reach up to heaven; it would root in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. But over all the land would be desolateness and stillness. Yet was it a "stillness unto God." The land was keeping long-neglected silent Sabbath unto God; ten times, "to fulfil three-score and ten years." A. E. 8-13. We have here, as also in the next chapter, Jeremiah prophesying in Egypt. Jeremiah was now in Tahpanhes, for there his lords and masters were; he was there among idolatrous Egyptians and treacherous Israelites; but there he received the word of the Lord; it came to him. The spirit of prophecy was not confined to the land of Israel. When Jeremiah went into Egypt, not out of choice but by constraint, God withdrew not His wonted favor from him. What he received of the Lord he delivered to the people. Now we find two messages which Jeremiah was appointed and intrusted to deliver when he was in Egypt: one in this chapter, relating to Egypt itself and foretelling its destruction; the other in the next chapter, relating to the Jews in Egypt. God had told them before that if they went into Egypt the sword they feared should follow them; here he tells them further that the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, which they were in a particular manner afraid of, should follow them. H. 8-11. This laying of great stones by the prophet in the clay of a brick-kiln, near the entrance of the king's house, was to be done "in the sight of the men of Judah." Such a transaction would serve to impress more strongly the words of His prophecy that the king of Babylon would certainly come there and set up his throne upon those very stones. Verse 11 must be understood as involving the destruction of at least the greater part of these Jewish exiles. They were especially among those doomed to death, the sword and captivity. H. C. 13. Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt.** The same as On or Heliopolis (Gen. 41:45). Heliopolis was the Greek translation of "Beth-shemesh," the house or city of the sun, called by Jeremiah "Beth-shemesh in the land of Egypt," to distinguish it from another Beth-shemesh in the land of Canaan. This city was probably near the royal city Zoan, and only fifteen stadia, or something less than two miles, from the sea, according to Herodotus. Hales.—The Memnonium, a temple in Thebes, measures four hundred feet by one hundred and fifty, its central hall having a solid roof supported by forty-eight massive columns, and “studded with stars on an azure ground.” Most of these pillars and part of the roof still remain. The astronomical subjects upon the ceiling of a small inner chamber of the temple have furnished a clew to the determination of some of the great cycles of Egyptian history. The Memnonium was built by the great Rameses, and its walls are illustrated with his victories, chiefly in Asia. Some of these sculptures are quite spirited. In front of the building, and flanked by colossal figures, the monarch placed the most stupendous statue ever reared in the world. This was the personification of Egyptian power in the colossal image of the king, “seated on a throne in the usual attitude of Egyptian figures, the hands resting on his knees, indicative of that tranquillity which he had returned to enjoy in Egypt after the fatigues of victory.” The statue was of one solid piece of sienite, and must have been transported from the quarry more than a hundred miles. Its weight has been computed at upward of eight hundred and eighty-seven tons; it is said to have been originally seventy-five feet high by twenty-three in breadth. By my own measurement of its fragments, as it now lies broken on the ground, I found the forehead fourteen feet from ear to ear; the head twenty-five feet six inches across from point to point, where the back lies upon the ground—the whole circumference not being accessible—the body fifty-one feet, measured across the shoulders from their insertion in the back, the shoulder itself sixteen feet six inches, the arm eleven feet six inches from shoulder to elbow, and the foot five feet ten inches long by four feet eight inches broad. This statue was overthrown by Cambyses, the Persian conqueror of Egypt, in the year 525 B.C. Years before this event, a Hebrew prophet had uttered the remarkable words: “He [the king of Babylon] shall break also the images [statues or standing images] of Beth-shemesh [the house of the sun], that is in the land of Egypt.” The overthrow of such an image, standing at the main gate of one of the principal temples of Thebes, may well have been symbolical of the destruction of Egypt. Indeed, I know not whether was the greater marvel, to set up this gigantic statue, or to throw it down so as to break the solid granite into the huge blocks now strewn upon the ground. J. P. Thompson. Chap. 44. This chapter completes the history of that remnant of Jews who went to Egypt. The prophet solemnly admonishes them, appealing to the example then fresh in their eye, of the ruin of their brethren in Jerusalem and Judah. They answer that idolatry and sin have paid well and insured them prosperity, and they will persist in their wicked ways. The Lord, by His prophet, pronounces His fearful curse on them, and gives them a sign of its execution—the fall of Pharaoh-hophra, then king of Egypt. H. C. 2. God puts them in mind of the desolations of Judah and Jerusalem, which, though the captives “by the rivers of Babylon” were daily mindful of them (Ps. 137: 1), the fugitives in the cities of Egypt seem to have forgotten, and needed to be put in mind of; though these desolations, one would have thought, had not been so long out of sight as to become out of mind. “Ye have seen” what a deplorable condition Judah and Jerusalem are brought into; now will you consider whence those desolations came? H. 2-4. It would seem that this appeal would be resistless, since that ruin of their fellow-countrymen had been so terrible, and withal was so recent and fresh before their minds. But the infatuation of sin defies all reason, and sets at naught all our calculations as to what men ought rationally to do or to think. This reference made by the Lord to His unwearied and most earnest labors through His prophets to reclaim and save the people has appeared frequently before in the writings of Jeremiah, yet here with the addition of this striking statement of the substance of His appeal: “Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!” In most brief and expressive terms God implores His people not to give their hearts to idol-gods and to rebellion against Himself, speaking of such a course as being “this abominable thing that I hate.” What could be more detestable in His sight than such sin! It was cruel wrong against Himself personally; it outraged all truth and reason; it could not fail of being utterly ruinous to themselves, both because of the horrible vices which it introduced and fostered, because of its terribly polluting influence upon their own souls, and because of the judgments for such sin, which, as a God both benevolent and just, He must bring upon them for it, even to their destruction. The passage has a rich significance as applied to all sin in all ages, for all sin has the nature of idolatry. It is always rebellion against God; it always gives the heart to some other god than Jehovah; it is always "that abominable thing which He hates," and He always and everywhere implores men not to do it, because it will surely be their ruin. It will of itself punish them, and over and above its own natural influences and results, God will and must make it work the ruin of all who will not repent and forsake it. H. C. 4. This abominable thing which I hate.** God Himself, we have always understood, hates sin with a most authentic, celestial and eternal hatred. The path of it is the path of a flaming sword; he that has eyes may see it, walking inexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible, through the chaotic gulf of human history, and everywhere burning the false and the deadworthy from the true and lifeworthy; making all human history a God's cosmos in place of a devil's chaos. So it is in the end; even so, to every man who is a man and has eyes to see. Carlyle.—If man could understand the unspeakable heinousness of sin, even of one sin, he would sooner plunge into a fiery furnace than commit it. If the sea were made of fire he would sooner seek the companionship of its burning waves and dwell in the midst of them, than endure the pang, the leaden torment which sooner or later must develop itself from every transgression. Catherine Adorna. Into the very texture of the plan of redemption is woven the most emphatic protest against sin in its every form. If its expiation demanded a sacrifice no less costly than the blood of the Son of God, must it not be intrinsically hateful in its own nature, and abominable in the eyes of Him in whose eternal counsels such a sacrifice was decreed? The Cross, then, furnishes no less striking a testimony of God's hostility against sin than it does of His love for sinners. The terrors of the Law, as well as the mercies and proffers of the Gospel, are traced in the letters of the Saviour's blood; if that blood at one time speaks to man in the still small voice of peace and reconciliation, it assures him at another time, in tones of thunder, of God's determination to visit all moral evil with eternal banishment from His presence. E. M. G. All the guilt that lies in foul rebellion against the mildest and most merciful of earthly monarchs; in disobeying the kindest and grieving the best of fathers; in ingratitude to a generous benefactor; in returning cursing for blessing, evil for good, and hatred for favors - in wounding a heart that loves us and the hand that was stretched out to pluck us from destruction; in refusing to please One who, though rich, for our sakes made Himself poor; took our debts on Him and paid them; took our burdens on Him and carried them; and bearing disgrace to crown us with honor, saved our lives at the expense of His own—all that evil, multiplied a thousand and a thousand times, there is in sin. It is a horrible crime committed against a gracious God and a loving Saviour, to say nothing of the injuries our sins have inflicted on ourselves, and the irreparable wrongs they may have done to others. It is from such views that true repentance springs. Guthrie. 11-14. The Lord reiterates His threatening of judgments upon these Jews in Egypt, assuring them they could by no means escape the same utter ruin that had befallen their countrymen. Only a very small remnant, the least fraction of them, would escape. (See verse 28.) 15-18. These verses are a mournful illustration of the madness of sin and of its social power over depraved hearts. All the men who knew that their wives were implicated in idol-worship were prominent in their defence. The women themselves, moreover, were not backward through modesty or any conscious sense of their degradation and guilt; but with the boldest effrontery stood up to avow their eternal devotion to their base idol-worship. Note their reasoning: "It was well with us while we were worshipping our idols." So sinners often reason. "Because vengeance against their evil work is not executed speedily," but the Lord waits long for them to repent, they account this quiet exemption from calamity as the natural prosperity of sinning. So much, say they, comes to us by virtue of our living as we list and doing our own pleasure. Thus they reach the conclusion that sin pays well. Satan cheats their souls into this horrible delusion, and they love to have it so. Then the second stage of their experience is perverted to prop up the same delusion: "Since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven we have wanted all things," etc. They left off, not at all in the way of honestly forsaking their sin by turning to God in penitence, but only because the judgments of God began to fall upon them and break up the worship they would fain have continued as before; and now they strangely impute these calamities to the frown of those senseless gods whose worship they had suspended. So the devil fortifies their wicked purpose with this double delusion. He makes them think that the good they receive in God's forbearance despite of their sin is the natural fruit of their sin, and that the ills which come of their sins really come of their not sinning—i.e., of their being broken off by the judgments of God from the sins they would fain have continued to commit. With such miserable delusions does the great deceiver of human souls mislead them to their damnation! It is awful to think that the native delicacy of the female sex should ever admit of such devotion to rites so impure and polluting! 24-28. Now the Lord sends a special message in addition to what the prophet had said before. He begins with saying, "Yes, you are committed fully to your wickedness and to your idolatry. Let that be understood. You have vowed eternal devotion to those idol-gods, and you intend to perform those vows. Of course it only remains to the mighty God, the great God of your fathers, to visit you with judgments till you are utterly consumed." A very small remnant only will escape, barely enough to be witnesses to the fearful desolation sent on their fellow-sinners, and to know whose words did stand—God's, or their own. We have now followed the prophetic history of the Jews to the point where the last feeble remnant is mainly exterminated in the land of Egypt. This portrayal of their sin and doom is exceedingly rich in its moral lessons for all subsequent ages. All along through the chapters of this prophet we have seen the developments of intense and strange infatuation, as if the people had become demented and lost to all reason and conscience. This infatuation seems to have culminated in this miserable remnant in Egypt, just where those impressive lessons from God's past judgments ought to have opened their eyes at least to their peril if not to their guilt. We stand amazed at such dedopravity, and cannot wonder that the Lord should visit upon it the most terrible inflictions of His rod. The whole Book of Jeremiah shows how slowly the wrath of the Lord arose against even this guilty people; how carefully He exposed to their view their great sin, and held it up in every just and appropriate light as a breach of covenant, an abuse of mercy, an insult to the great God, their Maker and Father, and as done in the face of constant warnings through His prophets, whom for a long time he had been rising early and sending. Interspersed with and following these revelations of their sin were repeated invitations to repentance and assurances of pardon, couched in most tender and touching terms, and sent from the Lord in the gentle tones and oft-flowing tears of this most affectionate prophet. Let us not fail to note that those tones and tears were only a fair representation of the heart of the Lord who selected, inspired and sent him. Verily, all that tender sympathy, faithful reproof, long delay and admonitory forewarnings could do to reclaim and to save guilty men was faithfully and fervently done to save this guilty nation, but in vain. The hour of retribution must therefore come at last. It came, and its vengeance was terrible! Does not all this history bear a startling testimony to the great facts and principles of God's moral government over nations here in time? And more than this, must we not draw from it a fearful inference as to the future doom of all incorrigible sinners who must stand singly to bear the curse of their own unpardoned sin in the world of final retribution? Out of the depths of this history a voice comes up from its underlying truths, witnessing that the end of great sins, unrepented of, must be a great and terrible damnation. H. C. PERIOD OF THE CAPTIVITY. CONDITION OF EXILED JEWS. EFFECTS OF CAPTIVITY: EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRY, EXTENSION OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OF MESSIANIC PROPHECIES, PREPARATION FOR CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 40 : 1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, which were carried away captive unto Bab- 2 ylon. And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said unto him, The LORD thy God pronounced this evil upon this place : and the LORD hath brought it, and done according as he spake ; because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore 4 this thing is come upon you. And now, behold, I loose thee this day from the chains which are upon thine hand. If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee ; but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear : behold, all the land is before thee ; whither it seemeth good and convenient unto thee to go, 5 thither go. Now while he was not yet gone back, Go back then, said he, to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon hath made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people : or go wheresoever it seemeth convenient unto thee to go. So the captain of the guard gave him victuals and a present, and let him 6 go. Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and dwell with him among the people that were left in the land. 7 Now when all the captains of the forces which were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed unto him men, and women, and children, and of the poorest of the land, 8 of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon ; then they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netopha- 9 the Maacathite, they and their men. And Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore unto them and to their men, saying, Fear not to serve the Chaldeans : dwell in the 10 land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the Chaldeans, which shall come unto us : but ye, gather ye wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your 11 cities that ye have taken. Likewise when all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and that were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of 12 Ahikam, the son of Shaphan ; then all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits very much. 13 Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were in the 14 fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, and said unto him, Dost thou know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take thy life? But 15 Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not. Then Johanan the son of Kareah spake to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Let me go, I pray thee, and I will slay Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it : wherefore should he take thy life, that all the Jews 16 which are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said unto Johanan the son of Kareah, Thou shalt not do this thing: for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael. 41:1 Now it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, and one of the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they did eat bread together in Mizpah. Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him, even with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans that were found there, even the men of war. And it came to pass the second day after he had slain Gedaliah, and no man knew it, that there came certain from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with oblations and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the LORD. And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and it came to pass, as he met them, he said unto them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. And it was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he, and the men that were with him. But ten men were found among them that said unto Ishmael, Shay us not: for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey. So he forbare, and slew them not among their brethren. Now the pit wherein Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had slain, by the side of Gedaliah, (the same was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel,) Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with them that were slain. Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people that were in Mizpah, even the king's daughters, and all the people that remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam: Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of Ammon. 11. But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done, then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon. Now it came to pass that when all the people which were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, then they were glad. So all the people that Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah cast about and returned, and went unto Johanan the son of Kareah. But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon. Then took Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after that he had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, even the men of war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought again from Gibeon: and they departed, and dwelt in Geruth Chimham, which is by Beth-lehem, to go to enter into Egypt, because of the Chaldeans: for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land. 42:1 Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest, came near, and said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we pray thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the LORD thy God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us: that the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we should walk, and the thing that we should do. Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the LORD your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass that whatsoever thing the LORD shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you. Then they said to Jeremiah, The LORD be a true and faithful witness amongst us, if we do not even according to all the word wherewith the LORD thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God. 7,8. And it came to pass after ten days, that the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah. Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces which were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto whom ye sent me to present your supplication before him: If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you. Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saith the LORD: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. And I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy upon you, and cause you to return to your own land. But if ye say, We will not dwell in this land; so that ye obey not the voice of the LORD your God; saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell: now therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn there; then it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye are afraid, shall follow hard after you there in Egypt; 17 and there ye shall die. So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: and none 18 of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As mine anger and my fury hath been poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my fury be poured forth upon you, when ye shall enter into Egypt: and ye shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; 19 and ye shall see this place no more. The LORD hath spoken concerning you, O remnant of 20 Judah, Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have testified unto you this day. For ye have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for ye sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God 21 shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it; and I have this day declared it to you; but ye have not obeyed the voice of the LORD your God in any thing for the which he hath sent 22 me unto you. Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go to sojourn there. 43:1 And it came to pass that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the LORD their God, wherewith the LORD their God had sent him to 2 them, even all these words, then spake Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the LORD our 3 God hath not sent thee to say, Ye shall not go into Egypt to sojourn there: but Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us, for to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that 4 they may put us to death, and carry us away captives to Babylon. So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the LORD, 5 to dwell in the land of Judah. But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all the nations whither they 6 had been driven to sojourn in the land of Judah; the men, and the women, and the children, and the king's daughters, and every person that Nebuzzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and 7 Baruch the son of Neriah; and they came into the land of Egypt; for they obeyed not the 8 voice of the LORD: and they came even to Tahpanhes. Then came the word of the LORD unto 9 Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in mortar in the brickwork, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men 10 of Judah; and say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne 11 upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And he shall come, and shall smile the land of Egypt; such as are for death shall be given to death, 12 and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd put- 13 teth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace. He shall also break the pillars of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall be burn with fire. 44:1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwelt in the land of Egypt, which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of 2 Pathros, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah; and, behold, this day 3 they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein; because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other 4 gods, whom they knew not, neither they, nor ye, nor your fathers. Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this 5 abominable thing that I hate. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from 6 their wickedness, to burn no incense unto other gods. Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and 7 they are wasted and desolate, as it is this day. Therefore now thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, out of the midst of Judah, to have 8 you none remaining; in that ye provoke me unto anger with the works of your hands, burn- ing incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye be gone to sojourn; that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? 9 Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your 10 wives, which they committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem? They are not humbled even unto this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my 11 statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, even to cut off all 12 Judah. And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall; they shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be an execration, 13 and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pesti- lence: so that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return save such as shall escape. 15. Then all the men which knew that their wives burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great assembly, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, 16 in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the 17 name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and 18 were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed 19 by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out 20 drink offerings unto her, without our husbands? Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, even to all the people which had given him that answer, saying, 21 The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD 22 remember them, and came it not into his mind? so that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitation, as it is this day. Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as it is this day. 24 Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women, Hear the word of the 25 LORD, all Judah that are in the land of Egypt: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: establish then your 26 vows, and perform your vows. Therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the LORD, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, 27 saying, as the LORD GOD liveth. Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the 28 famine, until there be an end of them. And they that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose word shall stand, mine, 29 or theirs. And this shall be the sign unto you, saith the LORD, that I will punish you in this 30 place, that ye may know that my words shall surely stand against you for evil: thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life. BEFORE pursuing the story of the Jews at Babylon to the end of the Captivity, we may conclude the history of Judea itself during the last twenty-five years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (n.c. 586-561), comprising the fate of the people left behind, and the fortunes of Jeremiah. P. S.—Nothing could more effectually show the hopeless condition of the people, and their unfitness for self-government, than this brief narrative of events which followed the destruction of Jerusalem. The detailed history is given in Jeremiah, chaps. 40-44. J. O.—These five chapters contain a particular account of what passed in the land of Judah from the taking of Jerusalem to the retreat of the people into Egypt, and the prophecies of Jeremiah concerning them there. Blayney. #### Outline of the History. A remnant of the people, among whom was Jeremiah, who was by Nebuchadnezzar's express command treated with the greatest respect (Jer. 39: 11-14; 40: 1-6), was left in the land; and fields and vineyards were assigned to them by Nebuzaradan (39: 10). Nebuchadnezzar placed over them as his viceroy Gedaliah, a son of the prince Ahikam, who appears (2 K. 22: 12) in high official position under Josiah, and to whom Jeremiah owed his deliverance when accused under Jehoiakim (Jer. 24: 24, cf. verse 16). Gedaliah, with a small Chaldee garrison, took up his abode at Mizpah, in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. After the departure of the Chaldee army a great number of Jews, who had by reason of the war been scattered in the neighboring countries, returned to Judea. Certain Jewish captains also, and others who had borne arms against the Chaldeans, settled at Mizpah, where they were kindly received by Gedaliah, who promised them pardon and protection if they would submit to the Chaldeans. The viceroyship of Gedaliah, however, which had held out to a considerable portion of the people the prospect of the peaceable possession of their native soil, lasted only two months. One of these captains, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, of the seed royal, instigated by Baalis, king of the Ammonites, placed himself at the head of a conspiracy against Gedaliah, who, not esteeming so base a treachery possible, and therefore rejecting the warning given him of it, was, together with the Chaldeans and Jews dwelling with him at Mizpah, slain during a banquet at which he was entertaining the conspirators. The Jews, who were hardly yet settled, fearing the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, determined, in spite of the warnings of Jeremiah, to emigrate to Egypt, whither the prophet also followed them. Surrendering themselves in Egypt to the worship of idols, to the neglecting of which they attributed the misfortunes of Judea (see the remarkable passage, Jer. 44 : 17 sqq.), Jeremiah was here also constrained to exercise his office of reprover, and probably terminated his storm-tossed life in that country (chaps. 40-44 belong to this period). His predictions (43 : 8-14 ; 44 : 30) were fulfilled, for in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem (584), Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt, slew its king, and again carried away a host of Jews to Babylon. Whether this is the deportation mentioned (Jer. 51 : 30), or whether the latter refers to a remnant still existing in Judea, cannot be determined. At all events, Judea lay desolate (cf. Zech. 7 : 14 ; 2 Chron. 36 : 21), so far as it was not occupied by the neighboring nations, particularly the Philistines and Edomites. The latter especially, who had long coveted the territory of Israel (Ezek. 35 : 10), must have taken possession of the southern part of the country (see the Greek Ezra, the so-called third book of Esdras, 4 : 50). Oehler. Jer. 40 : 4-6. Here the captain of the guard obeys the instructions which he had from his sovereign, as stated chap. 39 : 12, giving the prophet his free choice to go with the captives to Babylon, or to remain with the remnant in their own land. In the former case he had the fullest assurance of kind treatment and even of somewhat distinguished favors. In our imperfect human view, it would have been much for his comfort and welfare to have gone with the captives. His sympathies were strongly with them—not with this company alone, but with those who had gone before, as his letter to them (chap. 29) shows. He knew that they were the better portion of the Jewish people (chap. 24), and that the moral hopes of the nation lay in them ; also that his own personal safety was strongly guaranteed in that country. Yet, notwithstanding all these considerations, he chose to remain with these poor, weak, and, as it proved, morally unreliable and treacherous people. Probably he had some intimations that this was the Lord's will, so he met this slow martyrdom with his usual moral heroism. The sequel will show that he had bitter trials with this remnant—the refuse of the Jewish population. This Mizpah was near Jerusalem, the same which appears in the history of Samuel. 9-12. During the eighteen months' siege of Jerusalem many Jews would naturally flee their country and take refuge in countries adjacent. These now returned and placed themselves under the protection of Gedaliah and the Chaldean sovereign. 13-16. Johanan and his fellow-officers became aware of the foul conspiracy projected by the king of the Ammonites, to be executed by Ishmael against the life of Gedaliah. Unfortunately this Gedaliah, a good, well-meaning man, was not shrewd enough for his dangerous position, but had allowed himself to be deceived by this foul assassin. Hence he would not give heed to these forewarnings of danger, nor allow Ishmael to be put to death. H. C. 41 : 1, 2. Gedaliah had been warned by Johanan of Ishmael's intentions. Ishmael, it appears, was in league with the Ammonites, and had been incited by the Ammonitish king, Baalis, to assassinate Gedaliah. Johanan offered to crush the treason by himself killing Ishmael ; but Gedaliah, not believing his information, would not consent. The circumstances of the murder were, according to Oriental notions, of the extremest atrocity. Ishmael and his ten friends, with their retinues, professed to come on a visit to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and were there hospitably entertained by him (verse 1). Having " eaten of his salt," they suddenly rose upon him, slew him with his immediate attendants, and then attacking the Chaldean garrison of the place, put every man to the sword (verses 2, 3). B. C.—The murder of Gedaliah gave occasion to the fast of the seventh month, which the Jews observed after their return from captivity. (See Zech. 7 : 5 ; 8 : 19.) 3. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him.** That is, all those that joined in opposing Ishmael and assisting Gedaliah ; for several of the commanders as well as the greatest part of the people were still left alive, as appears from the sequel of the story (verses 10, 11). W. Lowth. 41 : 5-43 : 13. Two days later a band of eighty mourners appeared on the frontier, from Shechem, and Shiloh, and Samaria, bringing offerings for the desolated house of God, a touching proof of the religious patriotism which was still to be found even in the most heathenized part of Israel. By a treacherous artifice, Ishmael slew them all but ten, and cast their bodies, with those of his former victims, into a pit which Asa had dug at Mizpah for a hiding-place during his war with Baasha, and which may rank in history with the Glacière of Avignon and the well of Cawnpore. He then collected the people who were at Mizpah, including the daughters of Zedekiah, who had been entrusted to Gedaliah's care, and carried them off as captives toward Ammon. He was pursued by the Jewish captains, headed by Johanan, the son of Kareah, the same who had ineffectually warned Gedaliah. They overtook him by the great waters at Gibeon, and rescued the captives, while Ishmael, with eight comrades, fled to Ammon. Then, instead of returning to Mizpah, they marched southward to Bethlehem, intending to take refuge in Egypt from Nebuchadnezzar's vengeance for the murder of his governor. First, however, they asked Jeremiah for counsel from Jehovah. In ten days the answer came, forbidding them to go to Egypt, promising them the protection of God if they remained, and assuring them that, if they persisted in departing, the famine, and sword, and pestilence, from which they fled, would overtake them in their new refuge. So faithful was the prophet to the long-standing command that the people should never, under any pressure, seek to return by the way of Egypt. His warning only brought upon him a charge of conspiring with Baruch to speak falsely in God's name; and both he and Baruch were carried to Egypt against their will, with all the remnant who had been left under Gedaliah. Many of the Jews had already taken refuge there during the whole time that Egypt was regarded as their help against Assyria. They now formed a large community, living at Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros—a community which had afterward an important history of its own. Meanwhile they fell into idolatry, and Jeremiah denounced both on them and on Egypt itself the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar—a prophecy echoed from the banks of the Euphrates by Ezekiel, whose warnings, promises and exhortations to the exiles at Babylon still kept pace with the current of events in Judea. P. S. 42:3. That the Lord thy God may shew us the way. It is the constant method of hypocrites to pretend a profound submission to the will of God, till it crosses their inclinations or interest. W. Lowth. 4-6. They reiterate their promise to obey the Lord's word—a promise previously implied but less distinctly expressed. So far all appears fair, and we are left in the hope that this little remnant will indeed learn wisdom from the bitter experiences of the past, and will now follow the Lord honestly and fully. 9-12. The answer was definite and plain, promising good if they would remain trustfully in the land of Judah, assuring them they need fear nothing from the Chaldeans, as to whom the Lord would amply protect them. There is a rich and touching significance in the phraseology, "I will show mercies unto you, that He may have mercy upon you." God will manifest His mercy toward them by inspiring compassion for them in the otherwise hard and selfish heart of the king of Babylon. 13-18. The other alternative is strongly put before them. If they will go down into Egypt despite the Lord's friendly counsel and earnest prohibition, the very evils they were seeking to escape would surely overtake them there for their destruction. They might think to escape war, famine and pestilence there; but assuredly they would not, but, on the contrary, would certainly meet them there in their most fearful forms. H. C. 19. The Lord hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah, go ye not into Egypt.** God commanded the Jews by Moses not to have any commerce with Egypt, that they might not practise the idolatrous customs of that country, with whose idolatries they had been defiled during their sojourning there. Afterward he often reproved them by His prophets for making alliances with Egypt. There were particular reasons at this time for so severe a prohibition, as the words here and in the context import—namely, because the Jews either learned several of their idolatrous practices from the Egyptians, or at least were confirmed in those evil customs by their example. (See chap. 44:8, 15; Ezek. 29:16.) Besides, it was the rival kingdom that contended for empire with the Babylonians. So the Jews going into Egypt for protection was in effect refusing to submit themselves to the king of Babylon, to whom God had decreed the government of Judea, and all the neighboring countries. W. Lowth. 19-22. The noticeable thing in these closing verses is, that the Lord distinctly assumes that the people were not honest in submitting this great question to Him for His direction. He knew their hearts before they audibly answered, and therefore anticipated the very words they were about to say. It was every way befitting that the Lord should set their real heart before their own eyes, and solemnly apprise them of the ruin they were bringing on themselves by their hypocrisy. It was the most hopeful moral means He could use to arrest them in their course of sin, and turn them to repentance. How fruitless and ruinous are such subterfuges and dissimulations toward God! When did mortal man ever attempt them and prosper! When has such a dissembler ever failed of bringing ruin on his own soul! H. C. 43:2. Azariah. Called Jezaniah, chap. 42:1. We may observe many like instances in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, of the same person being called by different names. W. Lowth. 2,3. They deny it to be a message from God. "Johanan, and all the proud men, said to Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely." See here the cause of their disobedience: it was pride; only by that comes contention both with God and man; they were proud men that gave the lie to the prophet. They could not bear the contradiction of their sentiments and the control of their designs—no, not by the Divine wisdom, by the Divine will itself. H.—Their hearts were fully set on going down into Egypt. Hence, they would not believe that the God they still professed to honor, and of whom they still spake as "the Lord our God," had forbidden it. This is one of the most common methods of resisting the authority of God and refusing Him obedience. In this case those proud men slanderously charged Baruch with inciting Jeremiah against them for the alleged purpose of delivering them over to the Chaldean power for death or captivity. In all this they fully assumed that nothing but hostility to their best interests could induce men to prefer submission to the Chaldeans rather than to the Egyptians. This political feeling of hostility to the former power and of trust in the latter was intensely strong, and strangely arrayed on the side of the wicked and proud against God and His true servants. H. C. 4-6. These proud men compelled even Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch his scribe to go along with them to Egypt; they carried them away as prisoners. H.—The warning was in vain. The message of Jeremiah was represented as only the outcome of his own and of Baruch's personal resentment; and the leaders of Judah carried the feeble remnant to Tahpanhes in Egypt—there yet again to hear the voice of the aged prophet announcing the coming judgment on the country where, in their unbelief and hardheartedness, they had sought shelter. So the last remnant of Judah had gone from the land. The Davidic rule had passed away, so far as merely earthly power was concerned. The Davidic kingdom to come would be wider, higher, deeper. It would embrace the brotherhood of man; it would reach up to heaven; it would root in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. But over all the land would be desolateness and stillness. Yet was it a "stillness unto God." The land was keeping long-neglected silent Sabbath unto God; ten times, "to fulfil three-score and ten years." A. E. 8-13. We have here, as also in the next chapter, Jeremiah prophesying in Egypt. Jeremiah was now in Tahpanhes, for there his lords and masters were; he was there among idolatrous Egyptians and treacherous Israelites; but there he received the word of the Lord; it came to him. The spirit of prophecy was not confined to the land of Israel. When Jeremiah went into Egypt, not out of choice but by constraint, God withdrew not His wonted favor from him. What he received of the Lord he delivered to the people. Now we find two messages which Jeremiah was appointed and intrusted to deliver when he was in Egypt: one in this chapter, relating to Egypt itself and foretelling its destruction; the other in the next chapter, relating to the Jews in Egypt. God had told them before that if they went into Egypt the sword they feared should follow them; here he tells them further that the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, which they were in a particular manner afraid of, should follow them. H. 8-11. This laying of great stones by the prophet in the clay of a brick-kiln, near the entrance of the king's house, was to be done "in the sight of the men of Judah." Such a transaction would serve to impress more strongly the words of His prophecy that the king of Babylon would certainly come there and set up his throne upon those very stones. Verse 11 must be understood as involving the destruction of at least the greater part of these Jewish exiles. They were especially among those doomed to death, the sword and captivity. H. C. 13. Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt.** The same as On or Heliopolis (Gen. 41:45). Heliopolis was the Greek translation of "Beth-shemesh," the house or city of the sun, called by Jeremiah "Beth-shemesh in the land of Egypt," to distinguish it from another Beth-shemesh in the land of Canaan. This city was probably near the royal city Zoan, and only fifteen stadia, or something less than two miles, from the sea, according to Herodotus. Hales.—The Memnonium, a temple in Thebes, measures four hundred feet by one hundred and fifty, its central hall having a solid roof supported by forty-eight massive columns, and “studded with stars on an azure ground.” Most of these pillars and part of the roof still remain. The astronomical subjects upon the ceiling of a small inner chamber of the temple have furnished a clew to the determination of some of the great cycles of Egyptian history. The Memnonium was built by the great Rameses, and its walls are illustrated with his victories, chiefly in Asia. Some of these sculptures are quite spirited. In front of the building, and flanked by colossal figures, the monarch placed the most stupendous statue ever reared in the world. This was the personification of Egyptian power in the colossal image of the king, “seated on a throne in the usual attitude of Egyptian figures, the hands resting on his knees, indicative of that tranquillity which he had returned to enjoy in Egypt after the fatigues of victory.” The statue was of one solid piece of sienite, and must have been transported from the quarry more than a hundred miles. Its weight has been computed at upward of eight hundred and eighty-seven tons; it is said to have been originally seventy-five feet high by twenty-three in breadth. By my own measurement of its fragments, as it now lies broken on the ground, I found the forehead fourteen feet from ear to ear; the head twenty-five feet six inches across from point to point, where the back lies upon the ground—the whole circumference not being accessible—the body fifty-one feet, measured across the shoulders from their insertion in the back, the shoulder itself sixteen feet six inches, the arm eleven feet six inches from shoulder to elbow, and the foot five feet ten inches long by four feet eight inches broad. This statue was overthrown by Cambyses, the Persian conqueror of Egypt, in the year 525 B.C. Years before this event, a Hebrew prophet had uttered the remarkable words: “He [the king of Babylon] shall break also the images [statues or standing images] of Beth-shemesh [the house of the sun], that is in the land of Egypt.” The overthrow of such an image, standing at the main gate of one of the principal temples of Thebes, may well have been symbolical of the destruction of Egypt. Indeed, I know not whether was the greater marvel, to set up this gigantic statue, or to throw it down so as to break the solid granite into the huge blocks now strewn upon the ground. J. P. Thompson. Chap. 44. This chapter completes the history of that remnant of Jews who went to Egypt. The prophet solemnly admonishes them, appealing to the example then fresh in their eye, of the ruin of their brethren in Jerusalem and Judah. They answer that idolatry and sin have paid well and insured them prosperity, and they will persist in their wicked ways. The Lord, by His prophet, pronounces His fearful curse on them, and gives them a sign of its execution—the fall of Pharaoh-hophra, then king of Egypt. H. C. 2. God puts them in mind of the desolations of Judah and Jerusalem, which, though the captives “by the rivers of Babylon” were daily mindful of them (Ps. 137: 1), the fugitives in the cities of Egypt seem to have forgotten, and needed to be put in mind of; though these desolations, one would have thought, had not been so long out of sight as to become out of mind. “Ye have seen” what a deplorable condition Judah and Jerusalem are brought into; now will you consider whence those desolations came? H. 2-4. It would seem that this appeal would be resistless, since that ruin of their fellow-countrymen had been so terrible, and withal was so recent and fresh before their minds. But the infatuation of sin defies all reason, and sets at naught all our calculations as to what men ought rationally to do or to think. This reference made by the Lord to His unwearied and most earnest labors through His prophets to reclaim and save the people has appeared frequently before in the writings of Jeremiah, yet here with the addition of this striking statement of the substance of His appeal: “Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!” In most brief and expressive terms God implores His people not to give their hearts to idol-gods and to rebellion against Himself, speaking of such a course as being “this abominable thing that I hate.” What could be more detestable in His sight than such sin! It was cruel wrong against Himself personally; it outraged all truth and reason; it could not fail of being utterly ruinous to themselves, both because of the horrible vices which it introduced and fostered, because of its terribly polluting influence upon their own souls, and because of the judgments for such sin, which, as a God both benevolent and just, He must bring upon them for it, even to their destruction. The passage has a rich significance as applied to all sin in all ages, for all sin has the nature of idolatry. It is always rebellion against God; it always gives the heart to some other god than Jehovah; it is always "that abominable thing which He hates," and He always and everywhere implores men not to do it, because it will surely be their ruin. It will of itself punish them, and over and above its own natural influences and results, God will and must make it work the ruin of all who will not repent and forsake it. H. C. 4. This abominable thing which I hate.** God Himself, we have always understood, hates sin with a most authentic, celestial and eternal hatred. The path of it is the path of a flaming sword; he that has eyes may see it, walking inexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible, through the chaotic gulf of human history, and everywhere burning the false and the deadworthy from the true and lifeworthy; making all human history a God's cosmos in place of a devil's chaos. So it is in the end; even so, to every man who is a man and has eyes to see. Carlyle.—If man could understand the unspeakable heinousness of sin, even of one sin, he would sooner plunge into a fiery furnace than commit it. If the sea were made of fire he would sooner seek the companionship of its burning waves and dwell in the midst of them, than endure the pang, the leaden torment which sooner or later must develop itself from every transgression. Catherine Adorna. Into the very texture of the plan of redemption is woven the most emphatic protest against sin in its every form. If its expiation demanded a sacrifice no less costly than the blood of the Son of God, must it not be intrinsically hateful in its own nature, and abominable in the eyes of Him in whose eternal counsels such a sacrifice was decreed? The Cross, then, furnishes no less striking a testimony of God's hostility against sin than it does of His love for sinners. The terrors of the Law, as well as the mercies and proffers of the Gospel, are traced in the letters of the Saviour's blood; if that blood at one time speaks to man in the still small voice of peace and reconciliation, it assures him at another time, in tones of thunder, of God's determination to visit all moral evil with eternal banishment from His presence. E. M. G. All the guilt that lies in foul rebellion against the mildest and most merciful of earthly monarchs; in disobeying the kindest and grieving the best of fathers; in ingratitude to a generous benefactor; in returning cursing for blessing, evil for good, and hatred for favors - in wounding a heart that loves us and the hand that was stretched out to pluck us from destruction; in refusing to please One who, though rich, for our sakes made Himself poor; took our debts on Him and paid them; took our burdens on Him and carried them; and bearing disgrace to crown us with honor, saved our lives at the expense of His own—all that evil, multiplied a thousand and a thousand times, there is in sin. It is a horrible crime committed against a gracious God and a loving Saviour, to say nothing of the injuries our sins have inflicted on ourselves, and the irreparable wrongs they may have done to others. It is from such views that true repentance springs. Guthrie. 11-14. The Lord reiterates His threatening of judgments upon these Jews in Egypt, assuring them they could by no means escape the same utter ruin that had befallen their countrymen. Only a very small remnant, the least fraction of them, would escape. (See verse 28.) 15-18. These verses are a mournful illustration of the madness of sin and of its social power over depraved hearts. All the men who knew that their wives were implicated in idol-worship were prominent in their defence. The women themselves, moreover, were not backward through modesty or any conscious sense of their degradation and guilt; but with the boldest effrontery stood up to avow their eternal devotion to their base idol-worship. Note their reasoning: "It was well with us while we were worshipping our idols." So sinners often reason. "Because vengeance against their evil work is not executed speedily," but the Lord waits long for them to repent, they account this quiet exemption from calamity as the natural prosperity of sinning. So much, say they, comes to us by virtue of our living as we list and doing our own pleasure. Thus they reach the conclusion that sin pays well. Satan cheats their souls into this horrible delusion, and they love to have it so. Then the second stage of their experience is perverted to prop up the same delusion: "Since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven we have wanted all things," etc. They left off, not at all in the way of honestly forsaking their sin by turning to God in penitence, but only because the judgments of God began to fall upon them and break up the worship they would fain have continued as before; and now they strangely impute these calamities to the frown of those senseless gods whose worship they had suspended. So the devil fortifies their wicked purpose with this double delusion. He makes them think that the good they receive in God's forbearance despite of their sin is the natural fruit of their sin, and that the ills which come of their sins really come of their not sinning—i.e., of their being broken off by the judgments of God from the sins they would fain have continued to commit. With such miserable delusions does the great deceiver of human souls mislead them to their damnation! It is awful to think that the native delicacy of the female sex should ever admit of such devotion to rites so impure and polluting! 24-28. Now the Lord sends a special message in addition to what the prophet had said before. He begins with saying, "Yes, you are committed fully to your wickedness and to your idolatry. Let that be understood. You have vowed eternal devotion to those idol-gods, and you intend to perform those vows. Of course it only remains to the mighty God, the great God of your fathers, to visit you with judgments till you are utterly consumed." A very small remnant only will escape, barely enough to be witnesses to the fearful desolation sent on their fellow-sinners, and to know whose words did stand—God's, or their own. We have now followed the prophetic history of the Jews to the point where the last feeble remnant is mainly exterminated in the land of Egypt. This portrayal of their sin and doom is exceedingly rich in its moral lessons for all subsequent ages. All along through the chapters of this prophet we have seen the developments of intense and strange infatuation, as if the people had become demented and lost to all reason and conscience. This infatuation seems to have culminated in this miserable remnant in Egypt, just where those impressive lessons from God's past judgments ought to have opened their eyes at least to their peril if not to their guilt. We stand amazed at such dedopravity, and cannot wonder that the Lord should visit upon it the most terrible inflictions of His rod. The whole Book of Jeremiah shows how slowly the wrath of the Lord arose against even this guilty people; how carefully He exposed to their view their great sin, and held it up in every just and appropriate light as a breach of covenant, an abuse of mercy, an insult to the great God, their Maker and Father, and as done in the face of constant warnings through His prophets, whom for a long time he had been rising early and sending. Interspersed with and following these revelations of their sin were repeated invitations to repentance and assurances of pardon, couched in most tender and touching terms, and sent from the Lord in the gentle tones and oft-flowing tears of this most affectionate prophet. Let us not fail to note that those tones and tears were only a fair representation of the heart of the Lord who selected, inspired and sent him. Verily, all that tender sympathy, faithful reproof, long delay and admonitory forewarnings could do to reclaim and to save guilty men was faithfully and fervently done to save this guilty nation, but in vain. The hour of retribution must therefore come at last. It came, and its vengeance was terrible! Does not all this history bear a startling testimony to the great facts and principles of God's moral government over nations here in time? And more than this, must we not draw from it a fearful inference as to the future doom of all incorrigible sinners who must stand singly to bear the curse of their own unpardoned sin in the world of final retribution? Out of the depths of this history a voice comes up from its underlying truths, witnessing that the end of great sins, unrepented of, must be a great and terrible damnation. H. C. PERIOD OF THE CAPTIVITY. CONDITION OF EXILED JEWS. EFFECTS OF CAPTIVITY: EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRY, EXTENSION OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OF MESSIANIC PROPHECIES, PREPARATION FOR CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 40 : 1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, which were carried away captive unto Bab- 2 ylon. And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said unto him, The LORD thy God pronounced this evil upon this place : and the LORD hath brought it, and done according as he spake ; because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore 4 this thing is come upon you. And now, behold, I loose thee this day from the chains which are upon thine hand. If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee ; but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear : behold, all the land is before thee ; whither it seemeth good and convenient unto thee to go, 5 thither go. Now while he was not yet gone back, Go back then, said he, to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon hath made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people : or go wheresoever it seemeth convenient unto thee to go. So the captain of the guard gave him victuals and a present, and let him 6 go. Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and dwell with him among the people that were left in the land. 7 Now when all the captains of the forces which were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed unto him men, and women, and children, and of the poorest of the land, 8 of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon ; then they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netopha- 9 the Maacathite, they and their men. And Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore unto them and to their men, saying, Fear not to serve the Chaldeans : dwell in the 10 land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the Chaldeans, which shall come unto us : but ye, gather ye wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your 11 cities that ye have taken. Likewise when all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and that were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of 12 Ahikam, the son of Shaphan ; then all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits very much. 13 Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were in the 14 fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, and said unto him, Dost thou know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take thy life? But 15 Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not. Then Johanan the son of Kareah spake to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Let me go, I pray thee, and I will slay Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it : wherefore should he take thy life, that all the Jews 16 which are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said unto Johanan the son of Kareah, Thou shalt not do this thing: for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael. 41:1 Now it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, and one of the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they did eat bread together in Mizpah. Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him, even with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans that were found there, even the men of war. And it came to pass the second day after he had slain Gedaliah, and no man knew it, that there came certain from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with oblations and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the LORD. And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and it came to pass, as he met them, he said unto them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. And it was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he, and the men that were with him. But ten men were found among them that said unto Ishmael, Shay us not: for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey. So he forbare, and slew them not among their brethren. Now the pit wherein Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had slain, by the side of Gedaliah, (the same was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel,) Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with them that were slain. Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people that were in Mizpah, even the king's daughters, and all the people that remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam: Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of Ammon. 11. But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done, then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon. Now it came to pass that when all the people which were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, then they were glad. So all the people that Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah cast about and returned, and went unto Johanan the son of Kareah. But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon. Then took Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after that he had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, even the men of war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought again from Gibeon: and they departed, and dwelt in Geruth Chimham, which is by Beth-lehem, to go to enter into Egypt, because of the Chaldeans: for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land. 42:1 Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest, came near, and said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we pray thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the LORD thy God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us: that the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we should walk, and the thing that we should do. Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the LORD your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass that whatsoever thing the LORD shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you. Then they said to Jeremiah, The LORD be a true and faithful witness amongst us, if we do not even according to all the word wherewith the LORD thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God. 7,8. And it came to pass after ten days, that the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah. Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces which were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto whom ye sent me to present your supplication before him: If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you. Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saith the LORD: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. And I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy upon you, and cause you to return to your own land. But if ye say, We will not dwell in this land; so that ye obey not the voice of the LORD your God; saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell: now therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn there; then it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye are afraid, shall follow hard after you there in Egypt; 17 and there ye shall die. So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: and none 18 of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As mine anger and my fury hath been poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my fury be poured forth upon you, when ye shall enter into Egypt: and ye shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; 19 and ye shall see this place no more. The LORD hath spoken concerning you, O remnant of 20 Judah, Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have testified unto you this day. For ye have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for ye sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God 21 shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it; and I have this day declared it to you; but ye have not obeyed the voice of the LORD your God in any thing for the which he hath sent 22 me unto you. Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go to sojourn there. 43:1 And it came to pass that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the LORD their God, wherewith the LORD their God had sent him to 2 them, even all these words, then spake Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the LORD our 3 God hath not sent thee to say, Ye shall not go into Egypt to sojourn there: but Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us, for to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that 4 they may put us to death, and carry us away captives to Babylon. So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the LORD, 5 to dwell in the land of Judah. But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all the nations whither they 6 had been driven to sojourn in the land of Judah; the men, and the women, and the children, and the king's daughters, and every person that Nebuzzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and 7 Baruch the son of Neriah; and they came into the land of Egypt; for they obeyed not the 8 voice of the LORD: and they came even to Tahpanhes. Then came the word of the LORD unto 9 Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in mortar in the brickwork, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men 10 of Judah; and say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne 11 upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And he shall come, and shall smile the land of Egypt; such as are for death shall be given to death, 12 and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd put- 13 teth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace. He shall also break the pillars of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall be burn with fire. 44:1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwelt in the land of Egypt, which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of 2 Pathros, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah; and, behold, this day 3 they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein; because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other 4 gods, whom they knew not, neither they, nor ye, nor your fathers. Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this 5 abominable thing that I hate. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from 6 their wickedness, to burn no incense unto other gods. Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and 7 they are wasted and desolate, as it is this day. Therefore now thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, out of the midst of Judah, to have 8 you none remaining; in that ye provoke me unto anger with the works of your hands, burn- ing incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye be gone to sojourn; that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? 9 Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your 10 wives, which they committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem? They are not humbled even unto this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my 11 statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, even to cut off all 12 Judah. And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall; they shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be an execration, 13 and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pesti- lence: so that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return save such as shall escape. 15. Then all the men which knew that their wives burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great assembly, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, 16 in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the 17 name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and 18 were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed 19 by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out 20 drink offerings unto her, without our husbands? Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, even to all the people which had given him that answer, saying, 21 The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD 22 remember them, and came it not into his mind? so that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitation, as it is this day. Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as it is this day. 24 Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women, Hear the word of the 25 LORD, all Judah that are in the land of Egypt: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: establish then your 26 vows, and perform your vows. Therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the LORD, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, 27 saying, as the LORD GOD liveth. Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the 28 famine, until there be an end of them. And they that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose word shall stand, mine, 29 or theirs. And this shall be the sign unto you, saith the LORD, that I will punish you in this 30 place, that ye may know that my words shall surely stand against you for evil: thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life. BEFORE pursuing the story of the Jews at Babylon to the end of the Captivity, we may conclude the history of Judea itself during the last twenty-five years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (n.c. 586-561), comprising the fate of the people left behind, and the fortunes of Jeremiah. P. S.—Nothing could more effectually show the hopeless condition of the people, and their unfitness for self-government, than this brief narrative of events which followed the destruction of Jerusalem. The detailed history is given in Jeremiah, chaps. 40-44. J. O.—These five chapters contain a particular account of what passed in the land of Judah from the taking of Jerusalem to the retreat of the people into Egypt, and the prophecies of Jeremiah concerning them there. Blayney. #### Outline of the History. A remnant of the people, among whom was Jeremiah, who was by Nebuchadnezzar's express command treated with the greatest respect (Jer. 39: 11-14; 40: 1-6), was left in the land; and fields and vineyards were assigned to them by Nebuzaradan (39: 10). Nebuchadnezzar placed over them as his viceroy Gedaliah, a son of the prince Ahikam, who appears (2 K. 22: 12) in high official position under Josiah, and to whom Jeremiah owed his deliverance when accused under Jehoiakim (Jer. 24: 24, cf. verse 16). Gedaliah, with a small Chaldee garrison, took up his abode at Mizpah, in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. After the departure of the Chaldee army a great number of Jews, who had by reason of the war been scattered in the neighboring countries, returned to Judea. Certain Jewish captains also, and others who had borne arms against the Chaldeans, settled at Mizpah, where they were kindly received by Gedaliah, who promised them pardon and protection if they would submit to the Chaldeans. The viceroyship of Gedaliah, however, which had held out to a considerable portion of the people the prospect of the peaceable possession of their native soil, lasted only two months. One of these captains, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, of the seed royal, instigated by Baalis, king of the Ammonites, placed himself at the head of a conspiracy against Gedaliah, who, not esteeming so base a treachery possible, and therefore rejecting the warning given him of it, was, together with the Chaldeans and Jews dwelling with him at Mizpah, slain during a banquet at which he was entertaining the conspirators. The Jews, who were hardly yet settled, fearing the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, determined, in spite of the warnings of Jeremiah, to emigrate to Egypt, whither the prophet also followed them. Surrendering themselves in Egypt to the worship of idols, to the neglecting of which they attributed the misfortunes of Judea (see the remarkable passage, Jer. 44 : 17 sqq.), Jeremiah was here also constrained to exercise his office of reprover, and probably terminated his storm-tossed life in that country (chaps. 40-44 belong to this period). His predictions (43 : 8-14 ; 44 : 30) were fulfilled, for in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem (584), Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt, slew its king, and again carried away a host of Jews to Babylon. Whether this is the deportation mentioned (Jer. 51 : 30), or whether the latter refers to a remnant still existing in Judea, cannot be determined. At all events, Judea lay desolate (cf. Zech. 7 : 14 ; 2 Chron. 36 : 21), so far as it was not occupied by the neighboring nations, particularly the Philistines and Edomites. The latter especially, who had long coveted the territory of Israel (Ezek. 35 : 10), must have taken possession of the southern part of the country (see the Greek Ezra, the so-called third book of Esdras, 4 : 50). Oehler. Jer. 40 : 4-6. Here the captain of the guard obeys the instructions which he had from his sovereign, as stated chap. 39 : 12, giving the prophet his free choice to go with the captives to Babylon, or to remain with the remnant in their own land. In the former case he had the fullest assurance of kind treatment and even of somewhat distinguished favors. In our imperfect human view, it would have been much for his comfort and welfare to have gone with the captives. His sympathies were strongly with them—not with this company alone, but with those who had gone before, as his letter to them (chap. 29) shows. He knew that they were the better portion of the Jewish people (chap. 24), and that the moral hopes of the nation lay in them ; also that his own personal safety was strongly guaranteed in that country. Yet, notwithstanding all these considerations, he chose to remain with these poor, weak, and, as it proved, morally unreliable and treacherous people. Probably he had some intimations that this was the Lord's will, so he met this slow martyrdom with his usual moral heroism. The sequel will show that he had bitter trials with this remnant—the refuse of the Jewish population. This Mizpah was near Jerusalem, the same which appears in the history of Samuel. 9-12. During the eighteen months' siege of Jerusalem many Jews would naturally flee their country and take refuge in countries adjacent. These now returned and placed themselves under the protection of Gedaliah and the Chaldean sovereign. 13-16. Johanan and his fellow-officers became aware of the foul conspiracy projected by the king of the Ammonites, to be executed by Ishmael against the life of Gedaliah. Unfortunately this Gedaliah, a good, well-meaning man, was not shrewd enough for his dangerous position, but had allowed himself to be deceived by this foul assassin. Hence he would not give heed to these forewarnings of danger, nor allow Ishmael to be put to death. H. C. 41 : 1, 2. Gedaliah had been warned by Johanan of Ishmael's intentions. Ishmael, it appears, was in league with the Ammonites, and had been incited by the Ammonitish king, Baalis, to assassinate Gedaliah. Johanan offered to crush the treason by himself killing Ishmael ; but Gedaliah, not believing his information, would not consent. The circumstances of the murder were, according to Oriental notions, of the extremest atrocity. Ishmael and his ten friends, with their retinues, professed to come on a visit to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and were there hospitably entertained by him (verse 1). Having " eaten of his salt," they suddenly rose upon him, slew him with his immediate attendants, and then attacking the Chaldean garrison of the place, put every man to the sword (verses 2, 3). B. C.—The murder of Gedaliah gave occasion to the fast of the seventh month, which the Jews observed after their return from captivity. (See Zech. 7 : 5 ; 8 : 19.) 3. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him.** That is, all those that joined in opposing Ishmael and assisting Gedaliah ; for several of the commanders as well as the greatest part of the people were still left alive, as appears from the sequel of the story (verses 10, 11). W. Lowth. 41 : 5-43 : 13. Two days later a band of eighty mourners appeared on the frontier, from Shechem, and Shiloh, and Samaria, bringing offerings for the desolated house of God, a touching proof of the religious patriotism which was still to be found even in the most heathenized part of Israel. By a treacherous artifice, Ishmael slew them all but ten, and cast their bodies, with those of his former victims, into a pit which Asa had dug at Mizpah for a hiding-place during his war with Baasha, and which may rank in history with the Glacière of Avignon and the well of Cawnpore. He then collected the people who were at Mizpah, including the daughters of Zedekiah, who had been entrusted to Gedaliah's care, and carried them off as captives toward Ammon. He was pursued by the Jewish captains, headed by Johanan, the son of Kareah, the same who had ineffectually warned Gedaliah. They overtook him by the great waters at Gibeon, and rescued the captives, while Ishmael, with eight comrades, fled to Ammon. Then, instead of returning to Mizpah, they marched southward to Bethlehem, intending to take refuge in Egypt from Nebuchadnezzar's vengeance for the murder of his governor. First, however, they asked Jeremiah for counsel from Jehovah. In ten days the answer came, forbidding them to go to Egypt, promising them the protection of God if they remained, and assuring them that, if they persisted in departing, the famine, and sword, and pestilence, from which they fled, would overtake them in their new refuge. So faithful was the prophet to the long-standing command that the people should never, under any pressure, seek to return by the way of Egypt. His warning only brought upon him a charge of conspiring with Baruch to speak falsely in God's name; and both he and Baruch were carried to Egypt against their will, with all the remnant who had been left under Gedaliah. Many of the Jews had already taken refuge there during the whole time that Egypt was regarded as their help against Assyria. They now formed a large community, living at Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros—a community which had afterward an important history of its own. Meanwhile they fell into idolatry, and Jeremiah denounced both on them and on Egypt itself the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar—a prophecy echoed from the banks of the Euphrates by Ezekiel, whose warnings, promises and exhortations to the exiles at Babylon still kept pace with the current of events in Judea. P. S. 42:3. That the Lord thy God may shew us the way. It is the constant method of hypocrites to pretend a profound submission to the will of God, till it crosses their inclinations or interest. W. Lowth. 4-6. They reiterate their promise to obey the Lord's word—a promise previously implied but less distinctly expressed. So far all appears fair, and we are left in the hope that this little remnant will indeed learn wisdom from the bitter experiences of the past, and will now follow the Lord honestly and fully. 9-12. The answer was definite and plain, promising good if they would remain trustfully in the land of Judah, assuring them they need fear nothing from the Chaldeans, as to whom the Lord would amply protect them. There is a rich and touching significance in the phraseology, "I will show mercies unto you, that He may have mercy upon you." God will manifest His mercy toward them by inspiring compassion for them in the otherwise hard and selfish heart of the king of Babylon. 13-18. The other alternative is strongly put before them. If they will go down into Egypt despite the Lord's friendly counsel and earnest prohibition, the very evils they were seeking to escape would surely overtake them there for their destruction. They might think to escape war, famine and pestilence there; but assuredly they would not, but, on the contrary, would certainly meet them there in their most fearful forms. H. C. 19. The Lord hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah, go ye not into Egypt.** God commanded the Jews by Moses not to have any commerce with Egypt, that they might not practise the idolatrous customs of that country, with whose idolatries they had been defiled during their sojourning there. Afterward he often reproved them by His prophets for making alliances with Egypt. There were particular reasons at this time for so severe a prohibition, as the words here and in the context import—namely, because the Jews either learned several of their idolatrous practices from the Egyptians, or at least were confirmed in those evil customs by their example. (See chap. 44:8, 15; Ezek. 29:16.) Besides, it was the rival kingdom that contended for empire with the Babylonians. So the Jews going into Egypt for protection was in effect refusing to submit themselves to the king of Babylon, to whom God had decreed the government of Judea, and all the neighboring countries. W. Lowth. 19-22. The noticeable thing in these closing verses is, that the Lord distinctly assumes that the people were not honest in submitting this great question to Him for His direction. He knew their hearts before they audibly answered, and therefore anticipated the very words they were about to say. It was every way befitting that the Lord should set their real heart before their own eyes, and solemnly apprise them of the ruin they were bringing on themselves by their hypocrisy. It was the most hopeful moral means He could use to arrest them in their course of sin, and turn them to repentance. How fruitless and ruinous are such subterfuges and dissimulations toward God! When did mortal man ever attempt them and prosper! When has such a dissembler ever failed of bringing ruin on his own soul! H. C. 43:2. Azariah. Called Jezaniah, chap. 42:1. We may observe many like instances in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, of the same person being called by different names. W. Lowth. 2,3. They deny it to be a message from God. "Johanan, and all the proud men, said to Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely." See here the cause of their disobedience: it was pride; only by that comes contention both with God and man; they were proud men that gave the lie to the prophet. They could not bear the contradiction of their sentiments and the control of their designs—no, not by the Divine wisdom, by the Divine will itself. H.—Their hearts were fully set on going down into Egypt. Hence, they would not believe that the God they still professed to honor, and of whom they still spake as "the Lord our God," had forbidden it. This is one of the most common methods of resisting the authority of God and refusing Him obedience. In this case those proud men slanderously charged Baruch with inciting Jeremiah against them for the alleged purpose of delivering them over to the Chaldean power for death or captivity. In all this they fully assumed that nothing but hostility to their best interests could induce men to prefer submission to the Chaldeans rather than to the Egyptians. This political feeling of hostility to the former power and of trust in the latter was intensely strong, and strangely arrayed on the side of the wicked and proud against God and His true servants. H. C. 4-6. These proud men compelled even Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch his scribe to go along with them to Egypt; they carried them away as prisoners. H.—The warning was in vain. The message of Jeremiah was represented as only the outcome of his own and of Baruch's personal resentment; and the leaders of Judah carried the feeble remnant to Tahpanhes in Egypt—there yet again to hear the voice of the aged prophet announcing the coming judgment on the country where, in their unbelief and hardheartedness, they had sought shelter. So the last remnant of Judah had gone from the land. The Davidic rule had passed away, so far as merely earthly power was concerned. The Davidic kingdom to come would be wider, higher, deeper. It would embrace the brotherhood of man; it would reach up to heaven; it would root in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. But over all the land would be desolateness and stillness. Yet was it a "stillness unto God." The land was keeping long-neglected silent Sabbath unto God; ten times, "to fulfil three-score and ten years." A. E. 8-13. We have here, as also in the next chapter, Jeremiah prophesying in Egypt. Jeremiah was now in Tahpanhes, for there his lords and masters were; he was there among idolatrous Egyptians and treacherous Israelites; but there he received the word of the Lord; it came to him. The spirit of prophecy was not confined to the land of Israel. When Jeremiah went into Egypt, not out of choice but by constraint, God withdrew not His wonted favor from him. What he received of the Lord he delivered to the people. Now we find two messages which Jeremiah was appointed and intrusted to deliver when he was in Egypt: one in this chapter, relating to Egypt itself and foretelling its destruction; the other in the next chapter, relating to the Jews in Egypt. God had told them before that if they went into Egypt the sword they feared should follow them; here he tells them further that the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, which they were in a particular manner afraid of, should follow them. H. 8-11. This laying of great stones by the prophet in the clay of a brick-kiln, near the entrance of the king's house, was to be done "in the sight of the men of Judah." Such a transaction would serve to impress more strongly the words of His prophecy that the king of Babylon would certainly come there and set up his throne upon those very stones. Verse 11 must be understood as involving the destruction of at least the greater part of these Jewish exiles. They were especially among those doomed to death, the sword and captivity. H. C. 13. Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt.** The same as On or Heliopolis (Gen. 41:45). Heliopolis was the Greek translation of "Beth-shemesh," the house or city of the sun, called by Jeremiah "Beth-shemesh in the land of Egypt," to distinguish it from another Beth-shemesh in the land of Canaan. This city was probably near the royal city Zoan, and only fifteen stadia, or something less than two miles, from the sea, according to Herodotus. Hales.—The Memnonium, a temple in Thebes, measures four hundred feet by one hundred and fifty, its central hall having a solid roof supported by forty-eight massive columns, and “studded with stars on an azure ground.” Most of these pillars and part of the roof still remain. The astronomical subjects upon the ceiling of a small inner chamber of the temple have furnished a clew to the determination of some of the great cycles of Egyptian history. The Memnonium was built by the great Rameses, and its walls are illustrated with his victories, chiefly in Asia. Some of these sculptures are quite spirited. In front of the building, and flanked by colossal figures, the monarch placed the most stupendous statue ever reared in the world. This was the personification of Egyptian power in the colossal image of the king, “seated on a throne in the usual attitude of Egyptian figures, the hands resting on his knees, indicative of that tranquillity which he had returned to enjoy in Egypt after the fatigues of victory.” The statue was of one solid piece of sienite, and must have been transported from the quarry more than a hundred miles. Its weight has been computed at upward of eight hundred and eighty-seven tons; it is said to have been originally seventy-five feet high by twenty-three in breadth. By my own measurement of its fragments, as it now lies broken on the ground, I found the forehead fourteen feet from ear to ear; the head twenty-five feet six inches across from point to point, where the back lies upon the ground—the whole circumference not being accessible—the body fifty-one feet, measured across the shoulders from their insertion in the back, the shoulder itself sixteen feet six inches, the arm eleven feet six inches from shoulder to elbow, and the foot five feet ten inches long by four feet eight inches broad. This statue was overthrown by Cambyses, the Persian conqueror of Egypt, in the year 525 B.C. Years before this event, a Hebrew prophet had uttered the remarkable words: “He [the king of Babylon] shall break also the images [statues or standing images] of Beth-shemesh [the house of the sun], that is in the land of Egypt.” The overthrow of such an image, standing at the main gate of one of the principal temples of Thebes, may well have been symbolical of the destruction of Egypt. Indeed, I know not whether was the greater marvel, to set up this gigantic statue, or to throw it down so as to break the solid granite into the huge blocks now strewn upon the ground. J. P. Thompson. Chap. 44. This chapter completes the history of that remnant of Jews who went to Egypt. The prophet solemnly admonishes them, appealing to the example then fresh in their eye, of the ruin of their brethren in Jerusalem and Judah. They answer that idolatry and sin have paid well and insured them prosperity, and they will persist in their wicked ways. The Lord, by His prophet, pronounces His fearful curse on them, and gives them a sign of its execution—the fall of Pharaoh-hophra, then king of Egypt. H. C. 2. God puts them in mind of the desolations of Judah and Jerusalem, which, though the captives “by the rivers of Babylon” were daily mindful of them (Ps. 137: 1), the fugitives in the cities of Egypt seem to have forgotten, and needed to be put in mind of; though these desolations, one would have thought, had not been so long out of sight as to become out of mind. “Ye have seen” what a deplorable condition Judah and Jerusalem are brought into; now will you consider whence those desolations came? H. 2-4. It would seem that this appeal would be resistless, since that ruin of their fellow-countrymen had been so terrible, and withal was so recent and fresh before their minds. But the infatuation of sin defies all reason, and sets at naught all our calculations as to what men ought rationally to do or to think. This reference made by the Lord to His unwearied and most earnest labors through His prophets to reclaim and save the people has appeared frequently before in the writings of Jeremiah, yet here with the addition of this striking statement of the substance of His appeal: “Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!” In most brief and expressive terms God implores His people not to give their hearts to idol-gods and to rebellion against Himself, speaking of such a course as being “this abominable thing that I hate.” What could be more detestable in His sight than such sin! It was cruel wrong against Himself personally; it outraged all truth and reason; it could not fail of being utterly ruinous to themselves, both because of the horrible vices which it introduced and fostered, because of its terribly polluting influence upon their own souls, and because of the judgments for such sin, which, as a God both benevolent and just, He must bring upon them for it, even to their destruction. The passage has a rich significance as applied to all sin in all ages, for all sin has the nature of idolatry. It is always rebellion against God; it always gives the heart to some other god than Jehovah; it is always "that abominable thing which He hates," and He always and everywhere implores men not to do it, because it will surely be their ruin. It will of itself punish them, and over and above its own natural influences and results, God will and must make it work the ruin of all who will not repent and forsake it. H. C. 4. This abominable thing which I hate.** God Himself, we have always understood, hates sin with a most authentic, celestial and eternal hatred. The path of it is the path of a flaming sword; he that has eyes may see it, walking inexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible, through the chaotic gulf of human history, and everywhere burning the false and the deadworthy from the true and lifeworthy; making all human history a God's cosmos in place of a devil's chaos. So it is in the end; even so, to every man who is a man and has eyes to see. Carlyle.—If man could understand the unspeakable heinousness of sin, even of one sin, he would sooner plunge into a fiery furnace than commit it. If the sea were made of fire he would sooner seek the companionship of its burning waves and dwell in the midst of them, than endure the pang, the leaden torment which sooner or later must develop itself from every transgression. Catherine Adorna. Into the very texture of the plan of redemption is woven the most emphatic protest against sin in its every form. If its expiation demanded a sacrifice no less costly than the blood of the Son of God, must it not be intrinsically hateful in its own nature, and abominable in the eyes of Him in whose eternal counsels such a sacrifice was decreed? The Cross, then, furnishes no less striking a testimony of God's hostility against sin than it does of His love for sinners. The terrors of the Law, as well as the mercies and proffers of the Gospel, are traced in the letters of the Saviour's blood; if that blood at one time speaks to man in the still small voice of peace and reconciliation, it assures him at another time, in tones of thunder, of God's determination to visit all moral evil with eternal banishment from His presence. E. M. G. All the guilt that lies in foul rebellion against the mildest and most merciful of earthly monarchs; in disobeying the kindest and grieving the best of fathers; in ingratitude to a generous benefactor; in returning cursing for blessing, evil for good, and hatred for favors - in wounding a heart that loves us and the hand that was stretched out to pluck us from destruction; in refusing to please One who, though rich, for our sakes made Himself poor; took our debts on Him and paid them; took our burdens on Him and carried them; and bearing disgrace to crown us with honor, saved our lives at the expense of His own—all that evil, multiplied a thousand and a thousand times, there is in sin. It is a horrible crime committed against a gracious God and a loving Saviour, to say nothing of the injuries our sins have inflicted on ourselves, and the irreparable wrongs they may have done to others. It is from such views that true repentance springs. Guthrie. 11-14. The Lord reiterates His threatening of judgments upon these Jews in Egypt, assuring them they could by no means escape the same utter ruin that had befallen their countrymen. Only a very small remnant, the least fraction of them, would escape. (See verse 28.) 15-18. These verses are a mournful illustration of the madness of sin and of its social power over depraved hearts. All the men who knew that their wives were implicated in idol-worship were prominent in their defence. The women themselves, moreover, were not backward through modesty or any conscious sense of their degradation and guilt; but with the boldest effrontery stood up to avow their eternal devotion to their base idol-worship. Note their reasoning: "It was well with us while we were worshipping our idols." So sinners often reason. "Because vengeance against their evil work is not executed speedily," but the Lord waits long for them to repent, they account this quiet exemption from calamity as the natural prosperity of sinning. So much, say they, comes to us by virtue of our living as we list and doing our own pleasure. Thus they reach the conclusion that sin pays well. Satan cheats their souls into this horrible delusion, and they love to have it so. Then the second stage of their experience is perverted to prop up the same delusion: "Since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven we have wanted all things," etc. They left off, not at all in the way of honestly forsaking their sin by turning to God in penitence, but only because the judgments of God began to fall upon them and break up the worship they would fain have continued as before; and now they strangely impute these calamities to the frown of those senseless gods whose worship they had suspended. So the devil fortifies their wicked purpose with this double delusion. He makes them think that the good they receive in God's forbearance despite of their sin is the natural fruit of their sin, and that the ills which come of their sins really come of their not sinning—i.e., of their being broken off by the judgments of God from the sins they would fain have continued to commit. With such miserable delusions does the great deceiver of human souls mislead them to their damnation! It is awful to think that the native delicacy of the female sex should ever admit of such devotion to rites so impure and polluting! 24-28. Now the Lord sends a special message in addition to what the prophet had said before. He begins with saying, "Yes, you are committed fully to your wickedness and to your idolatry. Let that be understood. You have vowed eternal devotion to those idol-gods, and you intend to perform those vows. Of course it only remains to the mighty God, the great God of your fathers, to visit you with judgments till you are utterly consumed." A very small remnant only will escape, barely enough to be witnesses to the fearful desolation sent on their fellow-sinners, and to know whose words did stand—God's, or their own. We have now followed the prophetic history of the Jews to the point where the last feeble remnant is mainly exterminated in the land of Egypt. This portrayal of their sin and doom is exceedingly rich in its moral lessons for all subsequent ages. All along through the chapters of this prophet we have seen the developments of intense and strange infatuation, as if the people had become demented and lost to all reason and conscience. This infatuation seems to have culminated in this miserable remnant in Egypt, just where those impressive lessons from God's past judgments ought to have opened their eyes at least to their peril if not to their guilt. We stand amazed at such dedopravity, and cannot wonder that the Lord should visit upon it the most terrible inflictions of His rod. The whole Book of Jeremiah shows how slowly the wrath of the Lord arose against even this guilty people; how carefully He exposed to their view their great sin, and held it up in every just and appropriate light as a breach of covenant, an abuse of mercy, an insult to the great God, their Maker and Father, and as done in the face of constant warnings through His prophets, whom for a long time he had been rising early and sending. Interspersed with and following these revelations of their sin were repeated invitations to repentance and assurances of pardon, couched in most tender and touching terms, and sent from the Lord in the gentle tones and oft-flowing tears of this most affectionate prophet. Let us not fail to note that those tones and tears were only a fair representation of the heart of the Lord who selected, inspired and sent him. Verily, all that tender sympathy, faithful reproof, long delay and admonitory forewarnings could do to reclaim and to save guilty men was faithfully and fervently done to save this guilty nation, but in vain. The hour of retribution must therefore come at last. It came, and its vengeance was terrible! Does not all this history bear a startling testimony to the great facts and principles of God's moral government over nations here in time? And more than this, must we not draw from it a fearful inference as to the future doom of all incorrigible sinners who must stand singly to bear the curse of their own unpardoned sin in the world of final retribution? Out of the depths of this history a voice comes up from its underlying truths, witnessing that the end of great sins, unrepented of, must be a great and terrible damnation. H. C. PERIOD OF THE CAPTIVITY. CONDITION OF EXILED JEWS. EFFECTS OF CAPTIVITY: EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRY, EXTENSION OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OF MESSIANIC PROPHECIES, PREPARATION FOR CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 40 : 1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, which were carried away captive unto Bab- 2 ylon. And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said unto him, The LORD thy God pronounced this evil upon this place : and the LORD hath brought it, and done according as he spake ; because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore 4 this thing is come upon you. And now, behold, I loose thee this day from the chains which are upon thine hand. If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee ; but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear : behold, all the land is before thee ; whither it seemeth good and convenient unto thee to go, 5 thither go. Now while he was not yet gone back, Go back then, said he, to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon hath made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people : or go wheresoever it seemeth convenient unto thee to go. So the captain of the guard gave him victuals and a present, and let him 6 go. Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and dwell with him among the people that were left in the land. 7 Now when all the captains of the forces which were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed unto him men, and women, and children, and of the poorest of the land, 8 of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon ; then they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netopha- 9 the Maacathite, they and their men. And Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore unto them and to their men, saying, Fear not to serve the Chaldeans : dwell in the 10 land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the Chaldeans, which shall come unto us : but ye, gather ye wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your 11 cities that ye have taken. Likewise when all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and that were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of 12 Ahikam, the son of Shaphan ; then all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits very much. 13 Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were in the 14 fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, and said unto him, Dost thou know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take thy life? But 15 Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not. Then Johanan the son of Kareah spake to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Let me go, I pray thee, and I will slay Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it : wherefore should he take thy life, that all the Jews 16 which are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said unto Johanan the son of Kareah, Thou shalt not do this thing: for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael. 41:1 Now it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, and one of the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they did eat bread together in Mizpah. Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him, even with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans that were found there, even the men of war. And it came to pass the second day after he had slain Gedaliah, and no man knew it, that there came certain from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with oblations and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the LORD. And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and it came to pass, as he met them, he said unto them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. And it was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he, and the men that were with him. But ten men were found among them that said unto Ishmael, Shay us not: for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey. So he forbare, and slew them not among their brethren. Now the pit wherein Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had slain, by the side of Gedaliah, (the same was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel,) Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with them that were slain. Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people that were in Mizpah, even the king's daughters, and all the people that remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam: Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of Ammon. 11. But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done, then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon. Now it came to pass that when all the people which were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, then they were glad. So all the people that Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah cast about and returned, and went unto Johanan the son of Kareah. But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon. Then took Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after that he had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, even the men of war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought again from Gibeon: and they departed, and dwelt in Geruth Chimham, which is by Beth-lehem, to go to enter into Egypt, because of the Chaldeans: for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land. 42:1 Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest, came near, and said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we pray thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the LORD thy God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us: that the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we should walk, and the thing that we should do. Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the LORD your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass that whatsoever thing the LORD shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you. Then they said to Jeremiah, The LORD be a true and faithful witness amongst us, if we do not even according to all the word wherewith the LORD thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God. 7,8. And it came to pass after ten days, that the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah. Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces which were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto whom ye sent me to present your supplication before him: If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you. Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saith the LORD: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. And I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy upon you, and cause you to return to your own land. But if ye say, We will not dwell in this land; so that ye obey not the voice of the LORD your God; saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell: now therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn there; then it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye are afraid, shall follow hard after you there in Egypt; 17 and there ye shall die. So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: and none 18 of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As mine anger and my fury hath been poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my fury be poured forth upon you, when ye shall enter into Egypt: and ye shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; 19 and ye shall see this place no more. The LORD hath spoken concerning you, O remnant of 20 Judah, Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have testified unto you this day. For ye have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for ye sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God 21 shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it; and I have this day declared it to you; but ye have not obeyed the voice of the LORD your God in any thing for the which he hath sent 22 me unto you. Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go to sojourn there. 43:1 And it came to pass that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the LORD their God, wherewith the LORD their God had sent him to 2 them, even all these words, then spake Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the LORD our 3 God hath not sent thee to say, Ye shall not go into Egypt to sojourn there: but Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us, for to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that 4 they may put us to death, and carry us away captives to Babylon. So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the LORD, 5 to dwell in the land of Judah. But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all the nations whither they 6 had been driven to sojourn in the land of Judah; the men, and the women, and the children, and the king's daughters, and every person that Nebuzzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and 7 Baruch the son of Neriah; and they came into the land of Egypt; for they obeyed not the 8 voice of the LORD: and they came even to Tahpanhes. Then came the word of the LORD unto 9 Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in mortar in the brickwork, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men 10 of Judah; and say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne 11 upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And he shall come, and shall smile the land of Egypt; such as are for death shall be given to death, 12 and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd put- 13 teth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace. He shall also break the pillars of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall be burn with fire. 44:1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwelt in the land of Egypt, which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of 2 Pathros, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah; and, behold, this day 3 they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein; because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other 4 gods, whom they knew not, neither they, nor ye, nor your fathers. Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this 5 abominable thing that I hate. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from 6 their wickedness, to burn no incense unto other gods. Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and 7 they are wasted and desolate, as it is this day. Therefore now thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, out of the midst of Judah, to have 8 you none remaining; in that ye provoke me unto anger with the works of your hands, burn- ing incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye be gone to sojourn; that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? 9 Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your 10 wives, which they committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem? They are not humbled even unto this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my 11 statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, even to cut off all 12 Judah. And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall; they shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be an execration, 13 and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pesti- lence: so that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return save such as shall escape. 15. Then all the men which knew that their wives burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great assembly, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, 16 in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the 17 name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and 18 were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed 19 by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out 20 drink offerings unto her, without our husbands? Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, even to all the people which had given him that answer, saying, 21 The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD 22 remember them, and came it not into his mind? so that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitation, as it is this day. Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as it is this day. 24 Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women, Hear the word of the 25 LORD, all Judah that are in the land of Egypt: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: establish then your 26 vows, and perform your vows. Therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the LORD, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, 27 saying, as the LORD GOD liveth. Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the 28 famine, until there be an end of them. And they that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose word shall stand, mine, 29 or theirs. And this shall be the sign unto you, saith the LORD, that I will punish you in this 30 place, that ye may know that my words shall surely stand against you for evil: thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life. BEFORE pursuing the story of the Jews at Babylon to the end of the Captivity, we may conclude the history of Judea itself during the last twenty-five years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (n.c. 586-561), comprising the fate of the people left behind, and the fortunes of Jeremiah. P. S.—Nothing could more effectually show the hopeless condition of the people, and their unfitness for self-government, than this brief narrative of events which followed the destruction of Jerusalem. The detailed history is given in Jeremiah, chaps. 40-44. J. O.—These five chapters contain a particular account of what passed in the land of Judah from the taking of Jerusalem to the retreat of the people into Egypt, and the prophecies of Jeremiah concerning them there. Blayney. #### Outline of the History. A remnant of the people, among whom was Jeremiah, who was by Nebuchadnezzar's express command treated with the greatest respect (Jer. 39: 11-14; 40: 1-6), was left in the land; and fields and vineyards were assigned to them by Nebuzaradan (39: 10). Nebuchadnezzar placed over them as his viceroy Gedaliah, a son of the prince Ahikam, who appears (2 K. 22: 12) in high official position under Josiah, and to whom Jeremiah owed his deliverance when accused under Jehoiakim (Jer. 24: 24, cf. verse 16). Gedaliah, with a small Chaldee garrison, took up his abode at Mizpah, in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. After the departure of the Chaldee army a great number of Jews, who had by reason of the war been scattered in the neighboring countries, returned to Judea. Certain Jewish captains also, and others who had borne arms against the Chaldeans, settled at Mizpah, where they were kindly received by Gedaliah, who promised them pardon and protection if they would submit to the Chaldeans. The viceroyship of Gedaliah, however, which had held out to a considerable portion of the people the prospect of the peaceable possession of their native soil, lasted only two months. One of these captains, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, of the seed royal, instigated by Baalis, king of the Ammonites, placed himself at the head of a conspiracy against Gedaliah, who, not esteeming so base a treachery possible, and therefore rejecting the warning given him of it, was, together with the Chaldeans and Jews dwelling with him at Mizpah, slain during a banquet at which he was entertaining the conspirators. The Jews, who were hardly yet settled, fearing the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, determined, in spite of the warnings of Jeremiah, to emigrate to Egypt, whither the prophet also followed them. Surrendering themselves in Egypt to the worship of idols, to the neglecting of which they attributed the misfortunes of Judea (see the remarkable passage, Jer. 44 : 17 sqq.), Jeremiah was here also constrained to exercise his office of reprover, and probably terminated his storm-tossed life in that country (chaps. 40-44 belong to this period). His predictions (43 : 8-14 ; 44 : 30) were fulfilled, for in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem (584), Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt, slew its king, and again carried away a host of Jews to Babylon. Whether this is the deportation mentioned (Jer. 51 : 30), or whether the latter refers to a remnant still existing in Judea, cannot be determined. At all events, Judea lay desolate (cf. Zech. 7 : 14 ; 2 Chron. 36 : 21), so far as it was not occupied by the neighboring nations, particularly the Philistines and Edomites. The latter especially, who had long coveted the territory of Israel (Ezek. 35 : 10), must have taken possession of the southern part of the country (see the Greek Ezra, the so-called third book of Esdras, 4 : 50). Oehler. Jer. 40 : 4-6. Here the captain of the guard obeys the instructions which he had from his sovereign, as stated chap. 39 : 12, giving the prophet his free choice to go with the captives to Babylon, or to remain with the remnant in their own land. In the former case he had the fullest assurance of kind treatment and even of somewhat distinguished favors. In our imperfect human view, it would have been much for his comfort and welfare to have gone with the captives. His sympathies were strongly with them—not with this company alone, but with those who had gone before, as his letter to them (chap. 29) shows. He knew that they were the better portion of the Jewish people (chap. 24), and that the moral hopes of the nation lay in them ; also that his own personal safety was strongly guaranteed in that country. Yet, notwithstanding all these considerations, he chose to remain with these poor, weak, and, as it proved, morally unreliable and treacherous people. Probably he had some intimations that this was the Lord's will, so he met this slow martyrdom with his usual moral heroism. The sequel will show that he had bitter trials with this remnant—the refuse of the Jewish population. This Mizpah was near Jerusalem, the same which appears in the history of Samuel. 9-12. During the eighteen months' siege of Jerusalem many Jews would naturally flee their country and take refuge in countries adjacent. These now returned and placed themselves under the protection of Gedaliah and the Chaldean sovereign. 13-16. Johanan and his fellow-officers became aware of the foul conspiracy projected by the king of the Ammonites, to be executed by Ishmael against the life of Gedaliah. Unfortunately this Gedaliah, a good, well-meaning man, was not shrewd enough for his dangerous position, but had allowed himself to be deceived by this foul assassin. Hence he would not give heed to these forewarnings of danger, nor allow Ishmael to be put to death. H. C. 41 : 1, 2. Gedaliah had been warned by Johanan of Ishmael's intentions. Ishmael, it appears, was in league with the Ammonites, and had been incited by the Ammonitish king, Baalis, to assassinate Gedaliah. Johanan offered to crush the treason by himself killing Ishmael ; but Gedaliah, not believing his information, would not consent. The circumstances of the murder were, according to Oriental notions, of the extremest atrocity. Ishmael and his ten friends, with their retinues, professed to come on a visit to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and were there hospitably entertained by him (verse 1). Having " eaten of his salt," they suddenly rose upon him, slew him with his immediate attendants, and then attacking the Chaldean garrison of the place, put every man to the sword (verses 2, 3). B. C.—The murder of Gedaliah gave occasion to the fast of the seventh month, which the Jews observed after their return from captivity. (See Zech. 7 : 5 ; 8 : 19.) 3. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him.** That is, all those that joined in opposing Ishmael and assisting Gedaliah ; for several of the commanders as well as the greatest part of the people were still left alive, as appears from the sequel of the story (verses 10, 11). W. Lowth. 41 : 5-43 : 13. Two days later a band of eighty mourners appeared on the frontier, from Shechem, and Shiloh, and Samaria, bringing offerings for the desolated house of God, a touching proof of the religious patriotism which was still to be found even in the most heathenized part of Israel. By a treacherous artifice, Ishmael slew them all but ten, and cast their bodies, with those of his former victims, into a pit which Asa had dug at Mizpah for a hiding-place during his war with Baasha, and which may rank in history with the Glacière of Avignon and the well of Cawnpore. He then collected the people who were at Mizpah, including the daughters of Zedekiah, who had been entrusted to Gedaliah's care, and carried them off as captives toward Ammon. He was pursued by the Jewish captains, headed by Johanan, the son of Kareah, the same who had ineffectually warned Gedaliah. They overtook him by the great waters at Gibeon, and rescued the captives, while Ishmael, with eight comrades, fled to Ammon. Then, instead of returning to Mizpah, they marched southward to Bethlehem, intending to take refuge in Egypt from Nebuchadnezzar's vengeance for the murder of his governor. First, however, they asked Jeremiah for counsel from Jehovah. In ten days the answer came, forbidding them to go to Egypt, promising them the protection of God if they remained, and assuring them that, if they persisted in departing, the famine, and sword, and pestilence, from which they fled, would overtake them in their new refuge. So faithful was the prophet to the long-standing command that the people should never, under any pressure, seek to return by the way of Egypt. His warning only brought upon him a charge of conspiring with Baruch to speak falsely in God's name; and both he and Baruch were carried to Egypt against their will, with all the remnant who had been left under Gedaliah. Many of the Jews had already taken refuge there during the whole time that Egypt was regarded as their help against Assyria. They now formed a large community, living at Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros—a community which had afterward an important history of its own. Meanwhile they fell into idolatry, and Jeremiah denounced both on them and on Egypt itself the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar—a prophecy echoed from the banks of the Euphrates by Ezekiel, whose warnings, promises and exhortations to the exiles at Babylon still kept pace with the current of events in Judea. P. S. 42:3. That the Lord thy God may shew us the way. It is the constant method of hypocrites to pretend a profound submission to the will of God, till it crosses their inclinations or interest. W. Lowth. 4-6. They reiterate their promise to obey the Lord's word—a promise previously implied but less distinctly expressed. So far all appears fair, and we are left in the hope that this little remnant will indeed learn wisdom from the bitter experiences of the past, and will now follow the Lord honestly and fully. 9-12. The answer was definite and plain, promising good if they would remain trustfully in the land of Judah, assuring them they need fear nothing from the Chaldeans, as to whom the Lord would amply protect them. There is a rich and touching significance in the phraseology, "I will show mercies unto you, that He may have mercy upon you." God will manifest His mercy toward them by inspiring compassion for them in the otherwise hard and selfish heart of the king of Babylon. 13-18. The other alternative is strongly put before them. If they will go down into Egypt despite the Lord's friendly counsel and earnest prohibition, the very evils they were seeking to escape would surely overtake them there for their destruction. They might think to escape war, famine and pestilence there; but assuredly they would not, but, on the contrary, would certainly meet them there in their most fearful forms. H. C. 19. The Lord hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah, go ye not into Egypt.** God commanded the Jews by Moses not to have any commerce with Egypt, that they might not practise the idolatrous customs of that country, with whose idolatries they had been defiled during their sojourning there. Afterward he often reproved them by His prophets for making alliances with Egypt. There were particular reasons at this time for so severe a prohibition, as the words here and in the context import—namely, because the Jews either learned several of their idolatrous practices from the Egyptians, or at least were confirmed in those evil customs by their example. (See chap. 44:8, 15; Ezek. 29:16.) Besides, it was the rival kingdom that contended for empire with the Babylonians. So the Jews going into Egypt for protection was in effect refusing to submit themselves to the king of Babylon, to whom God had decreed the government of Judea, and all the neighboring countries. W. Lowth. 19-22. The noticeable thing in these closing verses is, that the Lord distinctly assumes that the people were not honest in submitting this great question to Him for His direction. He knew their hearts before they audibly answered, and therefore anticipated the very words they were about to say. It was every way befitting that the Lord should set their real heart before their own eyes, and solemnly apprise them of the ruin they were bringing on themselves by their hypocrisy. It was the most hopeful moral means He could use to arrest them in their course of sin, and turn them to repentance. How fruitless and ruinous are such subterfuges and dissimulations toward God! When did mortal man ever attempt them and prosper! When has such a dissembler ever failed of bringing ruin on his own soul! H. C. 43:2. Azariah. Called Jezaniah, chap. 42:1. We may observe many like instances in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, of the same person being called by different names. W. Lowth. 2,3. They deny it to be a message from God. "Johanan, and all the proud men, said to Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely." See here the cause of their disobedience: it was pride; only by that comes contention both with God and man; they were proud men that gave the lie to the prophet. They could not bear the contradiction of their sentiments and the control of their designs—no, not by the Divine wisdom, by the Divine will itself. H.—Their hearts were fully set on going down into Egypt. Hence, they would not believe that the God they still professed to honor, and of whom they still spake as "the Lord our God," had forbidden it. This is one of the most common methods of resisting the authority of God and refusing Him obedience. In this case those proud men slanderously charged Baruch with inciting Jeremiah against them for the alleged purpose of delivering them over to the Chaldean power for death or captivity. In all this they fully assumed that nothing but hostility to their best interests could induce men to prefer submission to the Chaldeans rather than to the Egyptians. This political feeling of hostility to the former power and of trust in the latter was intensely strong, and strangely arrayed on the side of the wicked and proud against God and His true servants. H. C. 4-6. These proud men compelled even Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch his scribe to go along with them to Egypt; they carried them away as prisoners. H.—The warning was in vain. The message of Jeremiah was represented as only the outcome of his own and of Baruch's personal resentment; and the leaders of Judah carried the feeble remnant to Tahpanhes in Egypt—there yet again to hear the voice of the aged prophet announcing the coming judgment on the country where, in their unbelief and hardheartedness, they had sought shelter. So the last remnant of Judah had gone from the land. The Davidic rule had passed away, so far as merely earthly power was concerned. The Davidic kingdom to come would be wider, higher, deeper. It would embrace the brotherhood of man; it would reach up to heaven; it would root in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. But over all the land would be desolateness and stillness. Yet was it a "stillness unto God." The land was keeping long-neglected silent Sabbath unto God; ten times, "to fulfil three-score and ten years." A. E. 8-13. We have here, as also in the next chapter, Jeremiah prophesying in Egypt. Jeremiah was now in Tahpanhes, for there his lords and masters were; he was there among idolatrous Egyptians and treacherous Israelites; but there he received the word of the Lord; it came to him. The spirit of prophecy was not confined to the land of Israel. When Jeremiah went into Egypt, not out of choice but by constraint, God withdrew not His wonted favor from him. What he received of the Lord he delivered to the people. Now we find two messages which Jeremiah was appointed and intrusted to deliver when he was in Egypt: one in this chapter, relating to Egypt itself and foretelling its destruction; the other in the next chapter, relating to the Jews in Egypt. God had told them before that if they went into Egypt the sword they feared should follow them; here he tells them further that the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, which they were in a particular manner afraid of, should follow them. H. 8-11. This laying of great stones by the prophet in the clay of a brick-kiln, near the entrance of the king's house, was to be done "in the sight of the men of Judah." Such a transaction would serve to impress more strongly the words of His prophecy that the king of Babylon would certainly come there and set up his throne upon those very stones. Verse 11 must be understood as involving the destruction of at least the greater part of these Jewish exiles. They were especially among those doomed to death, the sword and captivity. H. C. 13. Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt.** The same as On or Heliopolis (Gen. 41:45). Heliopolis was the Greek translation of "Beth-shemesh," the house or city of the sun, called by Jeremiah "Beth-shemesh in the land of Egypt," to distinguish it from another Beth-shemesh in the land of Canaan. This city was probably near the royal city Zoan, and only fifteen stadia, or something less than two miles, from the sea, according to Herodotus. Hales.—The Memnonium, a temple in Thebes, measures four hundred feet by one hundred and fifty, its central hall having a solid roof supported by forty-eight massive columns, and “studded with stars on an azure ground.” Most of these pillars and part of the roof still remain. The astronomical subjects upon the ceiling of a small inner chamber of the temple have furnished a clew to the determination of some of the great cycles of Egyptian history. The Memnonium was built by the great Rameses, and its walls are illustrated with his victories, chiefly in Asia. Some of these sculptures are quite spirited. In front of the building, and flanked by colossal figures, the monarch placed the most stupendous statue ever reared in the world. This was the personification of Egyptian power in the colossal image of the king, “seated on a throne in the usual attitude of Egyptian figures, the hands resting on his knees, indicative of that tranquillity which he had returned to enjoy in Egypt after the fatigues of victory.” The statue was of one solid piece of sienite, and must have been transported from the quarry more than a hundred miles. Its weight has been computed at upward of eight hundred and eighty-seven tons; it is said to have been originally seventy-five feet high by twenty-three in breadth. By my own measurement of its fragments, as it now lies broken on the ground, I found the forehead fourteen feet from ear to ear; the head twenty-five feet six inches across from point to point, where the back lies upon the ground—the whole circumference not being accessible—the body fifty-one feet, measured across the shoulders from their insertion in the back, the shoulder itself sixteen feet six inches, the arm eleven feet six inches from shoulder to elbow, and the foot five feet ten inches long by four feet eight inches broad. This statue was overthrown by Cambyses, the Persian conqueror of Egypt, in the year 525 B.C. Years before this event, a Hebrew prophet had uttered the remarkable words: “He [the king of Babylon] shall break also the images [statues or standing images] of Beth-shemesh [the house of the sun], that is in the land of Egypt.” The overthrow of such an image, standing at the main gate of one of the principal temples of Thebes, may well have been symbolical of the destruction of Egypt. Indeed, I know not whether was the greater marvel, to set up this gigantic statue, or to throw it down so as to break the solid granite into the huge blocks now strewn upon the ground. J. P. Thompson. Chap. 44. This chapter completes the history of that remnant of Jews who went to Egypt. The prophet solemnly admonishes them, appealing to the example then fresh in their eye, of the ruin of their brethren in Jerusalem and Judah. They answer that idolatry and sin have paid well and insured them prosperity, and they will persist in their wicked ways. The Lord, by His prophet, pronounces His fearful curse on them, and gives them a sign of its execution—the fall of Pharaoh-hophra, then king of Egypt. H. C. 2. God puts them in mind of the desolations of Judah and Jerusalem, which, though the captives “by the rivers of Babylon” were daily mindful of them (Ps. 137: 1), the fugitives in the cities of Egypt seem to have forgotten, and needed to be put in mind of; though these desolations, one would have thought, had not been so long out of sight as to become out of mind. “Ye have seen” what a deplorable condition Judah and Jerusalem are brought into; now will you consider whence those desolations came? H. 2-4. It would seem that this appeal would be resistless, since that ruin of their fellow-countrymen had been so terrible, and withal was so recent and fresh before their minds. But the infatuation of sin defies all reason, and sets at naught all our calculations as to what men ought rationally to do or to think. This reference made by the Lord to His unwearied and most earnest labors through His prophets to reclaim and save the people has appeared frequently before in the writings of Jeremiah, yet here with the addition of this striking statement of the substance of His appeal: “Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!” In most brief and expressive terms God implores His people not to give their hearts to idol-gods and to rebellion against Himself, speaking of such a course as being “this abominable thing that I hate.” What could be more detestable in His sight than such sin! It was cruel wrong against Himself personally; it outraged all truth and reason; it could not fail of being utterly ruinous to themselves, both because of the horrible vices which it introduced and fostered, because of its terribly polluting influence upon their own souls, and because of the judgments for such sin, which, as a God both benevolent and just, He must bring upon them for it, even to their destruction. The passage has a rich significance as applied to all sin in all ages, for all sin has the nature of idolatry. It is always rebellion against God; it always gives the heart to some other god than Jehovah; it is always "that abominable thing which He hates," and He always and everywhere implores men not to do it, because it will surely be their ruin. It will of itself punish them, and over and above its own natural influences and results, God will and must make it work the ruin of all who will not repent and forsake it. H. C. 4. This abominable thing which I hate.** God Himself, we have always understood, hates sin with a most authentic, celestial and eternal hatred. The path of it is the path of a flaming sword; he that has eyes may see it, walking inexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible, through the chaotic gulf of human history, and everywhere burning the false and the deadworthy from the true and lifeworthy; making all human history a God's cosmos in place of a devil's chaos. So it is in the end; even so, to every man who is a man and has eyes to see. Carlyle.—If man could understand the unspeakable heinousness of sin, even of one sin, he would sooner plunge into a fiery furnace than commit it. If the sea were made of fire he would sooner seek the companionship of its burning waves and dwell in the midst of them, than endure the pang, the leaden torment which sooner or later must develop itself from every transgression. Catherine Adorna. Into the very texture of the plan of redemption is woven the most emphatic protest against sin in its every form. If its expiation demanded a sacrifice no less costly than the blood of the Son of God, must it not be intrinsically hateful in its own nature, and abominable in the eyes of Him in whose eternal counsels such a sacrifice was decreed? The Cross, then, furnishes no less striking a testimony of God's hostility against sin than it does of His love for sinners. The terrors of the Law, as well as the mercies and proffers of the Gospel, are traced in the letters of the Saviour's blood; if that blood at one time speaks to man in the still small voice of peace and reconciliation, it assures him at another time, in tones of thunder, of God's determination to visit all moral evil with eternal banishment from His presence. E. M. G. All the guilt that lies in foul rebellion against the mildest and most merciful of earthly monarchs; in disobeying the kindest and grieving the best of fathers; in ingratitude to a generous benefactor; in returning cursing for blessing, evil for good, and hatred for favors - in wounding a heart that loves us and the hand that was stretched out to pluck us from destruction; in refusing to please One who, though rich, for our sakes made Himself poor; took our debts on Him and paid them; took our burdens on Him and carried them; and bearing disgrace to crown us with honor, saved our lives at the expense of His own—all that evil, multiplied a thousand and a thousand times, there is in sin. It is a horrible crime committed against a gracious God and a loving Saviour, to say nothing of the injuries our sins have inflicted on ourselves, and the irreparable wrongs they may have done to others. It is from such views that true repentance springs. Guthrie. 11-14. The Lord reiterates His threatening of judgments upon these Jews in Egypt, assuring them they could by no means escape the same utter ruin that had befallen their countrymen. Only a very small remnant, the least fraction of them, would escape. (See verse 28.) 15-18. These verses are a mournful illustration of the madness of sin and of its social power over depraved hearts. All the men who knew that their wives were implicated in idol-worship were prominent in their defence. The women themselves, moreover, were not backward through modesty or any conscious sense of their degradation and guilt; but with the boldest effrontery stood up to avow their eternal devotion to their base idol-worship. Note their reasoning: "It was well with us while we were worshipping our idols." So sinners often reason. "Because vengeance against their evil work is not executed speedily," but the Lord waits long for them to repent, they account this quiet exemption from calamity as the natural prosperity of sinning. So much, say they, comes to us by virtue of our living as we list and doing our own pleasure. Thus they reach the conclusion that sin pays well. Satan cheats their souls into this horrible delusion, and they love to have it so. Then the second stage of their experience is perverted to prop up the same delusion: "Since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven we have wanted all things," etc. They left off, not at all in the way of honestly forsaking their sin by turning to God in penitence, but only because the judgments of God began to fall upon them and break up the worship they would fain have continued as before; and now they strangely impute these calamities to the frown of those senseless gods whose worship they had suspended. So the devil fortifies their wicked purpose with this double delusion. He makes them think that the good they receive in God's forbearance despite of their sin is the natural fruit of their sin, and that the ills which come of their sins really come of their not sinning—i.e., of their being broken off by the judgments of God from the sins they would fain have continued to commit. With such miserable delusions does the great deceiver of human souls mislead them to their damnation! It is awful to think that the native delicacy of the female sex should ever admit of such devotion to rites so impure and polluting! 24-28. Now the Lord sends a special message in addition to what the prophet had said before. He begins with saying, "Yes, you are committed fully to your wickedness and to your idolatry. Let that be understood. You have vowed eternal devotion to those idol-gods, and you intend to perform those vows. Of course it only remains to the mighty God, the great God of your fathers, to visit you with judgments till you are utterly consumed." A very small remnant only will escape, barely enough to be witnesses to the fearful desolation sent on their fellow-sinners, and to know whose words did stand—God's, or their own. We have now followed the prophetic history of the Jews to the point where the last feeble remnant is mainly exterminated in the land of Egypt. This portrayal of their sin and doom is exceedingly rich in its moral lessons for all subsequent ages. All along through the chapters of this prophet we have seen the developments of intense and strange infatuation, as if the people had become demented and lost to all reason and conscience. This infatuation seems to have culminated in this miserable remnant in Egypt, just where those impressive lessons from God's past judgments ought to have opened their eyes at least to their peril if not to their guilt. We stand amazed at such dedopravity, and cannot wonder that the Lord should visit upon it the most terrible inflictions of His rod. The whole Book of Jeremiah shows how slowly the wrath of the Lord arose against even this guilty people; how carefully He exposed to their view their great sin, and held it up in every just and appropriate light as a breach of covenant, an abuse of mercy, an insult to the great God, their Maker and Father, and as done in the face of constant warnings through His prophets, whom for a long time he had been rising early and sending. Interspersed with and following these revelations of their sin were repeated invitations to repentance and assurances of pardon, couched in most tender and touching terms, and sent from the Lord in the gentle tones and oft-flowing tears of this most affectionate prophet. Let us not fail to note that those tones and tears were only a fair representation of the heart of the Lord who selected, inspired and sent him. Verily, all that tender sympathy, faithful reproof, long delay and admonitory forewarnings could do to reclaim and to save guilty men was faithfully and fervently done to save this guilty nation, but in vain. The hour of retribution must therefore come at last. It came, and its vengeance was terrible! Does not all this history bear a startling testimony to the great facts and principles of God's moral government over nations here in time? And more than this, must we not draw from it a fearful inference as to the future doom of all incorrigible sinners who must stand singly to bear the curse of their own unpardoned sin in the world of final retribution? Out of the depths of this history a voice comes up from its underlying truths, witnessing that the end of great sins, unrepented of, must be a great and terrible damnation. H. C. PERIOD OF THE CAPTIVITY. CONDITION OF EXILED JEWS. EFFECTS OF CAPTIVITY: EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRY, EXTENSION OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OF MESSIANIC PROPHECIES, PREPARATION FOR CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 40 : 1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, which were carried away captive unto Bab- 2 ylon. And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said unto him, The LORD thy God pronounced this evil upon this place : and the LORD hath brought it, and done according as he spake ; because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore 4 this thing is come upon you. And now, behold, I loose thee this day from the chains which are upon thine hand. If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee ; but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear : behold, all the land is before thee ; whither it seemeth good and convenient unto thee to go, 5 thither go. Now while he was not yet gone back, Go back then, said he, to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon hath made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people : or go wheresoever it seemeth convenient unto thee to go. So the captain of the guard gave him victuals and a present, and let him 6 go. Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and dwell with him among the people that were left in the land. 7 Now when all the captains of the forces which were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed unto him men, and women, and children, and of the poorest of the land, 8 of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon ; then they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netopha- 9 the Maacathite, they and their men. And Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore unto them and to their men, saying, Fear not to serve the Chaldeans : dwell in the 10 land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the Chaldeans, which shall come unto us : but ye, gather ye wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your 11 cities that ye have taken. Likewise when all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and that were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of 12 Ahikam, the son of Shaphan ; then all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits very much. 13 Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were in the 14 fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, and said unto him, Dost thou know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take thy life? But 15 Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not. Then Johanan the son of Kareah spake to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Let me go, I pray thee, and I will slay Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it : wherefore should he take thy life, that all the Jews 16 which are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said unto Johanan the son of Kareah, Thou shalt not do this thing: for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael. 41:1 Now it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, and one of the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they did eat bread together in Mizpah. Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him, even with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans that were found there, even the men of war. And it came to pass the second day after he had slain Gedaliah, and no man knew it, that there came certain from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with oblations and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the LORD. And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and it came to pass, as he met them, he said unto them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. And it was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he, and the men that were with him. But ten men were found among them that said unto Ishmael, Shay us not: for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey. So he forbare, and slew them not among their brethren. Now the pit wherein Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had slain, by the side of Gedaliah, (the same was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel,) Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with them that were slain. Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people that were in Mizpah, even the king's daughters, and all the people that remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam: Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of Ammon. 11. But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done, then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon. Now it came to pass that when all the people which were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, then they were glad. So all the people that Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah cast about and returned, and went unto Johanan the son of Kareah. But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon. Then took Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after that he had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, even the men of war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought again from Gibeon: and they departed, and dwelt in Geruth Chimham, which is by Beth-lehem, to go to enter into Egypt, because of the Chaldeans: for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land. 42:1 Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest, came near, and said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we pray thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the LORD thy God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us: that the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we should walk, and the thing that we should do. Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the LORD your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass that whatsoever thing the LORD shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you. Then they said to Jeremiah, The LORD be a true and faithful witness amongst us, if we do not even according to all the word wherewith the LORD thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God. 7,8. And it came to pass after ten days, that the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah. Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces which were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, unto whom ye sent me to present your supplication before him: If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you. Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saith the LORD: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. And I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy upon you, and cause you to return to your own land. But if ye say, We will not dwell in this land; so that ye obey not the voice of the LORD your God; saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell: now therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn there; then it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye are afraid, shall follow hard after you there in Egypt; 17 and there ye shall die. So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: and none 18 of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As mine anger and my fury hath been poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my fury be poured forth upon you, when ye shall enter into Egypt: and ye shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; 19 and ye shall see this place no more. The LORD hath spoken concerning you, O remnant of 20 Judah, Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have testified unto you this day. For ye have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for ye sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God 21 shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it; and I have this day declared it to you; but ye have not obeyed the voice of the LORD your God in any thing for the which he hath sent 22 me unto you. Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go to sojourn there. 43:1 And it came to pass that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the LORD their God, wherewith the LORD their God had sent him to 2 them, even all these words, then spake Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the LORD our 3 God hath not sent thee to say, Ye shall not go into Egypt to sojourn there: but Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us, for to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that 4 they may put us to death, and carry us away captives to Babylon. So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the LORD, 5 to dwell in the land of Judah. But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all the nations whither they 6 had been driven to sojourn in the land of Judah; the men, and the women, and the children, and the king's daughters, and every person that Nebuzzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and 7 Baruch the son of Neriah; and they came into the land of Egypt; for they obeyed not the 8 voice of the LORD: and they came even to Tahpanhes. Then came the word of the LORD unto 9 Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in mortar in the brickwork, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men 10 of Judah; and say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne 11 upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And he shall come, and shall smile the land of Egypt; such as are for death shall be given to death, 12 and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd put- 13 teth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace. He shall also break the pillars of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall be burn with fire. 44:1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwelt in the land of Egypt, which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of 2 Pathros, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah; and, behold, this day 3 they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein; because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other 4 gods, whom they knew not, neither they, nor ye, nor your fathers. Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this 5 abominable thing that I hate. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from 6 their wickedness, to burn no incense unto other gods. Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and 7 they are wasted and desolate, as it is this day. Therefore now thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, out of the midst of Judah, to have 8 you none remaining; in that ye provoke me unto anger with the works of your hands, burn- ing incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye be gone to sojourn; that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? 9 Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your 10 wives, which they committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem? They are not humbled even unto this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my 11 statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, even to cut off all 12 Judah. And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall; they shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be an execration, 13 and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pesti- lence: so that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return save such as shall escape. 15. Then all the men which knew that their wives burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great assembly, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, 16 in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the 17 name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and 18 were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed 19 by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out 20 drink offerings unto her, without our husbands? Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, even to all the people which had given him that answer, saying, 21 The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD 22 remember them, and came it not into his mind? so that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitation, as it is this day. Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as it is this day. 24 Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women, Hear the word of the 25 LORD, all Judah that are in the land of Egypt: thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: establish then your 26 vows, and perform your vows. Therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the LORD, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, 27 saying, as the LORD GOD liveth. Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the 28 famine, until there be an end of them. And they that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose word shall stand, mine, 29 or theirs. And this shall be the sign unto you, saith the LORD, that I will punish you in this 30 place, that ye may know that my words shall surely stand against you for evil: thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life. BEFORE pursuing the story of the Jews at Babylon to the end of the Captivity, we may conclude the history of Judea itself during the last twenty-five years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (n.c. 586-561), comprising the fate of the people left behind, and the fortunes of Jeremiah. P. S.—Nothing could more effectually show the hopeless condition of the people, and their unfitness for self-government, than this brief narrative of events which followed the destruction of Jerusalem. The detailed history is given in Jeremiah, chaps. 40-44. J. O.—These five chapters contain a particular account of what passed in the land of Judah from the taking of Jerusalem to the retreat of the people into Egypt, and the prophecies of Jeremiah concerning them there. Blayney. #### Outline of the History. A remnant of the people, among whom was Jeremiah, who was by Nebuchadnezzar's express command treated with the greatest respect (Jer. 39: 11-14; 40: 1-6), was left in the land; and fields and vineyards were assigned to them by Nebuzaradan (39: 10). Nebuchadnezzar placed over them as his viceroy Gedaliah, a son of the prince Ahikam, who appears (2 K. 22: 12) in high official position under Josiah, and to whom Jeremiah owed his deliverance when accused under Jehoiakim (Jer. 24: 24, cf. verse 16). Gedaliah, with a small Chaldee garrison, took up his abode at Mizpah, in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. After the departure of the Chaldee army a great number of Jews, who had by reason of the war been scattered in the neighboring countries, returned to Judea. Certain Jewish captains also, and others who had borne arms against the Chaldeans, settled at Mizpah, where they were kindly received by Gedaliah, who promised them pardon and protection if they would submit to the Chaldeans. The viceroyship of Gedaliah, however, which had held out to a considerable portion of the people the prospect of the peaceable possession of their native soil, lasted only two months. One of these captains, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, of the seed royal, instigated by Baalis, king of the Ammonites, placed himself at the head of a conspiracy against Gedaliah, who, not esteeming so base a treachery possible, and therefore rejecting the warning given him of it, was, together with the Chaldeans and Jews dwelling with him at Mizpah, slain during a banquet at which he was entertaining the conspirators. The Jews, who were hardly yet settled, fearing the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, determined, in spite of the warnings of Jeremiah, to emigrate to Egypt, whither the prophet also followed them. Surrendering themselves in Egypt to the worship of idols, to the neglecting of which they attributed the misfortunes of Judea (see the remarkable passage, Jer. 44 : 17 sqq.), Jeremiah was here also constrained to exercise his office of reprover, and probably terminated his storm-tossed life in that country (chaps. 40-44 belong to this period). His predictions (43 : 8-14 ; 44 : 30) were fulfilled, for in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem (584), Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt, slew its king, and again carried away a host of Jews to Babylon. Whether this is the deportation mentioned (Jer. 51 : 30), or whether the latter refers to a remnant still existing in Judea, cannot be determined. At all events, Judea lay desolate (cf. Zech. 7 : 14 ; 2 Chron. 36 : 21), so far as it was not occupied by the neighboring nations, particularly the Philistines and Edomites. The latter especially, who had long coveted the territory of Israel (Ezek. 35 : 10), must have taken possession of the southern part of the country (see the Greek Ezra, the so-called third book of Esdras, 4 : 50). Oehler. Jer. 40 : 4-6. Here the captain of the guard obeys the instructions which he had from his sovereign, as stated chap. 39 : 12, giving the prophet his free choice to go with the captives to Babylon, or to remain with the remnant in their own land. In the former case he had the fullest assurance of kind treatment and even of somewhat distinguished favors. In our imperfect human view, it would have been much for his comfort and welfare to have gone with the captives. His sympathies were strongly with them—not with this company alone, but with those who had gone before, as his letter to them (chap. 29) shows. He knew that they were the better portion of the Jewish people (chap. 24), and that the moral hopes of the nation lay in them ; also that his own personal safety was strongly guaranteed in that country. Yet, notwithstanding all these considerations, he chose to remain with these poor, weak, and, as it proved, morally unreliable and treacherous people. Probably he had some intimations that this was the Lord's will, so he met this slow martyrdom with his usual moral heroism. The sequel will show that he had bitter trials with this remnant—the refuse of the Jewish population. This Mizpah was near Jerusalem, the same which appears in the history of Samuel. 9-12. During the eighteen months' siege of Jerusalem many Jews would naturally flee their country and take refuge in countries adjacent. These now returned and placed themselves under the protection of Gedaliah and the Chaldean sovereign. 13-16. Johanan and his fellow-officers became aware of the foul conspiracy projected by the king of the Ammonites, to be executed by Ishmael against the life of Gedaliah. Unfortunately this Gedaliah, a good, well-meaning man, was not shrewd enough for his dangerous position, but had allowed himself to be deceived by this foul assassin. Hence he would not give heed to these forewarnings of danger, nor allow Ishmael to be put to death. H. C. 41 : 1, 2. Gedaliah had been warned by Johanan of Ishmael's intentions. Ishmael, it appears, was in league with the Ammonites, and had been incited by the Ammonitish king, Baalis, to assassinate Gedaliah. Johanan offered to crush the treason by himself killing Ishmael ; but Gedaliah, not believing his information, would not consent. The circumstances of the murder were, according to Oriental notions, of the extremest atrocity. Ishmael and his ten friends, with their retinues, professed to come on a visit to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and were there hospitably entertained by him (verse 1). Having " eaten of his salt," they suddenly rose upon him, slew him with his immediate attendants, and then attacking the Chaldean garrison of the place, put every man to the sword (verses 2, 3). B. C.—The murder of Gedaliah gave occasion to the fast of the seventh month, which the Jews observed after their return from captivity. (See Zech. 7 : 5 ; 8 : 19.) 3. Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him.** That is, all those that joined in opposing Ishmael and assisting Gedaliah ; for several of the commanders as well as the greatest part of the people were still left alive, as appears from the sequel of the story (verses 10, 11). W. Lowth. 41 : 5-43 : 13. Two days later a band of eighty mourners appeared on the frontier, from Shechem, and Shiloh, and Samaria, bringing offerings for the desolated house of God, a touching proof of the religious patriotism which was still to be found even in the most heathenized part of Israel. By a treacherous artifice, Ishmael slew them all but ten, and cast their bodies, with those of his former victims, into a pit which Asa had dug at Mizpah for a hiding-place during his war with Baasha, and which may rank in history with the Glacière of Avignon and the well of Cawnpore. He then collected the people who were at Mizpah, including the daughters of Zedekiah, who had been entrusted to Gedaliah's care, and carried them off as captives toward Ammon. He was pursued by the Jewish captains, headed by Johanan, the son of Kareah, the same who had ineffectually warned Gedaliah. They overtook him by the great waters at Gibeon, and rescued the captives, while Ishmael, with eight comrades, fled to Ammon. Then, instead of returning to Mizpah, they marched southward to Bethlehem, intending to take refuge in Egypt from Nebuchadnezzar's vengeance for the murder of his governor. First, however, they asked Jeremiah for counsel from Jehovah. In ten days the answer came, forbidding them to go to Egypt, promising them the protection of God if they remained, and assuring them that, if they persisted in departing, the famine, and sword, and pestilence, from which they fled, would overtake them in their new refuge. So faithful was the prophet to the long-standing command that the people should never, under any pressure, seek to return by the way of Egypt. His warning only brought upon him a charge of conspiring with Baruch to speak falsely in God's name; and both he and Baruch were carried to Egypt against their will, with all the remnant who had been left under Gedaliah. Many of the Jews had already taken refuge there during the whole time that Egypt was regarded as their help against Assyria. They now formed a large community, living at Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros—a community which had afterward an important history of its own. Meanwhile they fell into idolatry, and Jeremiah denounced both on them and on Egypt itself the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar—a prophecy echoed from the banks of the Euphrates by Ezekiel, whose warnings, promises and exhortations to the exiles at Babylon still kept pace with the current of events in Judea. P. S. 42:3. That the Lord thy God may shew us the way. It is the constant method of hypocrites to pretend a profound submission to the will of God, till it crosses their inclinations or interest. W. Lowth. 4-6. They reiterate their promise to obey the Lord's word—a promise previously implied but less distinctly expressed. So far all appears fair, and we are left in the hope that this little remnant will indeed learn wisdom from the bitter experiences of the past, and will now follow the Lord honestly and fully. 9-12. The answer was definite and plain, promising good if they would remain trustfully in the land of Judah, assuring them they need fear nothing from the Chaldeans, as to whom the Lord would amply protect them. There is a rich and touching significance in the phraseology, "I will show mercies unto you, that He may have mercy upon you." God will manifest His mercy toward them by inspiring compassion for them in the otherwise hard and selfish heart of the king of Babylon. 13-18. The other alternative is strongly put before them. If they will go down into Egypt despite the Lord's friendly counsel and earnest prohibition, the very evils they were seeking to escape would surely overtake them there for their destruction. They might think to escape war, famine and pestilence there; but assuredly they would not, but, on the contrary, would certainly meet them there in their most fearful forms. H. C. 19. The Lord hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah, go ye not into Egypt.** God commanded the Jews by Moses not to have any commerce with Egypt, that they might not practise the idolatrous customs of that country, with whose idolatries they had been defiled during their sojourning there. Afterward he often reproved them by His prophets for making alliances with Egypt. There were particular reasons at this time for so severe a prohibition, as the words here and in the context import—namely, because the Jews either learned several of their idolatrous practices from the Egyptians, or at least were confirmed in those evil customs by their example. (See chap. 44:8, 15; Ezek. 29:16.) Besides, it was the rival kingdom that contended for empire with the Babylonians. So the Jews going into Egypt for protection was in effect refusing to submit themselves to the king of Babylon, to whom God had decreed the government of Judea, and all the neighboring countries. W. Lowth. 19-22. The noticeable thing in these closing verses is, that the Lord distinctly assumes that the people were not honest in submitting this great question to Him for His direction. He knew their hearts before they audibly answered, and therefore anticipated the very words they were about to say. It was every way befitting that the Lord should set their real heart before their own eyes, and solemnly apprise them of the ruin they were bringing on themselves by their hypocrisy. It was the most hopeful moral means He could use to arrest them in their course of sin, and turn them to repentance. How fruitless and ruinous are such subterfuges and dissimulations toward God! When did mortal man ever attempt them and prosper! When has such a dissembler ever failed of bringing ruin on his own soul! H. C. 43:2. Azariah. Called Jezaniah, chap. 42:1. We may observe many like instances in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, of the same person being called by different names. W. Lowth. 2,3. They deny it to be a message from God. "Johanan, and all the proud men, said to Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely." See here the cause of their disobedience: it was pride; only by that comes contention both with God and man; they were proud men that gave the lie to the prophet. They could not bear the contradiction of their sentiments and the control of their designs—no, not by the Divine wisdom, by the Divine will itself. H.—Their hearts were fully set on going down into Egypt. Hence, they would not believe that the God they still professed to honor, and of whom they still spake as "the Lord our God," had forbidden it. This is one of the most common methods of resisting the authority of God and refusing Him obedience. In this case those proud men slanderously charged Baruch with inciting Jeremiah against them for the alleged purpose of delivering them over to the Chaldean power for death or captivity. In all this they fully assumed that nothing but hostility to their best interests could induce men to prefer submission to the Chaldeans rather than to the Egyptians. This political feeling of hostility to the former power and of trust in the latter was intensely strong, and strangely arrayed on the side of the wicked and proud against God and His true servants. H. C. 4-6. These proud men compelled even Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch his scribe to go along with them to Egypt; they carried them away as prisoners. H.—The warning was in vain. The message of Jeremiah was represented as only the outcome of his own and of Baruch's personal resentment; and the leaders of Judah carried the feeble remnant to Tahpanhes in Egypt—there yet again to hear the voice of the aged prophet announcing the coming judgment on the country where, in their unbelief and hardheartedness, they had sought shelter. So the last remnant of Judah had gone from the land. The Davidic rule had passed away, so far as merely earthly power was concerned. The Davidic kingdom to come would be wider, higher, deeper. It would embrace the brotherhood of man; it would reach up to heaven; it would root in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. But over all the land would be desolateness and stillness. Yet was it a "stillness unto God." The land was keeping long-neglected silent Sabbath unto God; ten times, "to fulfil three-score and ten years." A. E. 8-13. We have here, as also in the next chapter, Jeremiah prophesying in Egypt. Jeremiah was now in Tahpanhes, for there his lords and masters were; he was there among idolatrous Egyptians and treacherous Israelites; but there he received the word of the Lord; it came to him. The spirit of prophecy was not confined to the land of Israel. When Jeremiah went into Egypt, not out of choice but by constraint, God withdrew not His wonted favor from him. What he received of the Lord he delivered to the people. Now we find two messages which Jeremiah was appointed and intrusted to deliver when he was in Egypt: one in this chapter, relating to Egypt itself and foretelling its destruction; the other in the next chapter, relating to the Jews in Egypt. God had told them before that if they went into Egypt the sword they feared should follow them; here he tells them further that the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, which they were in a particular manner afraid of, should follow them. H. 8-11. This laying of great stones by the prophet in the clay of a brick-kiln, near the entrance of the king's house, was to be done "in the sight of the men of Judah." Such a transaction would serve to impress more strongly the words of His prophecy that the king of Babylon would certainly come there and set up his throne upon those very stones. Verse 11 must be understood as involving the destruction of at least the greater part of these Jewish exiles. They were especially among those doomed to death, the sword and captivity. H. C. 13. Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt.** The same as On or Heliopolis (Gen. 41:45). Heliopolis was the Greek translation of "Beth-shemesh," the house or city of the sun, called by Jeremiah "Beth-shemesh in the land of Egypt," to distinguish it from another Beth-shemesh in the land of Canaan. This city was probably near the royal city Zoan, and only fifteen stadia, or something less than two miles, from the sea, according to Herodotus. Hales.—The Memnonium, a temple in Thebes, measures four hundred feet by one hundred and fifty, its central hall having a solid roof supported by forty-eight massive columns, and “studded with stars on an azure ground.” Most of these pillars and part of the roof still remain. The astronomical subjects upon the ceiling of a small inner chamber of the temple have furnished a clew to the determination of some of the great cycles of Egyptian history. The Memnonium was built by the great Rameses, and its walls are illustrated with his victories, chiefly in Asia. Some of these sculptures are quite spirited. In front of the building, and flanked by colossal figures, the monarch placed the most stupendous statue ever reared in the world. This was the personification of Egyptian power in the colossal image of the king, “seated on a throne in the usual attitude of Egyptian figures, the hands resting on his knees, indicative of that tranquillity which he had returned to enjoy in Egypt after the fatigues of victory.” The statue was of one solid piece of sienite, and must have been transported from the quarry more than a hundred miles. Its weight has been computed at upward of eight hundred and eighty-seven tons; it is said to have been originally seventy-five feet high by twenty-three in breadth. By my own measurement of its fragments, as it now lies broken on the ground, I found the forehead fourteen feet from ear to ear; the head twenty-five feet six inches across from point to point, where the back lies upon the ground—the whole circumference not being accessible—the body fifty-one feet, measured across the shoulders from their insertion in the back, the shoulder itself sixteen feet six inches, the arm eleven feet six inches from shoulder to elbow, and the foot five feet ten inches long by four feet eight inches broad. This statue was overthrown by Cambyses, the Persian conqueror of Egypt, in the year 525 B.C. Years before this event, a Hebrew prophet had uttered the remarkable words: “He [the king of Babylon] shall break also the images [statues or standing images] of Beth-shemesh [the house of the sun], that is in the land of Egypt.” The overthrow of such an image, standing at the main gate of one of the principal temples of Thebes, may well have been symbolical of the destruction of Egypt. Indeed, I know not whether was the greater marvel, to set up this gigantic statue, or to throw it down so as to break the solid granite into the huge blocks now strewn upon the ground. J. P. Thompson. Chap. 44. This chapter completes the history of that remnant of Jews who went to Egypt. The prophet solemnly admonishes them, appealing to the example then fresh in their eye, of the ruin of their brethren in Jerusalem and Judah. They answer that idolatry and sin have paid well and insured them prosperity, and they will persist in their wicked ways. The Lord, by His prophet, pronounces His fearful curse on them, and gives them a sign of its execution—the fall of Pharaoh-hophra, then king of Egypt. H. C. 2. God puts them in mind of the desolations of Judah and Jerusalem, which, though the captives “by the rivers of Babylon” were daily mindful of them (Ps. 137: 1), the fugitives in the cities of Egypt seem to have forgotten, and needed to be put in mind of; though these desolations, one would have thought, had not been so long out of sight as to become out of mind. “Ye have seen” what a deplorable condition Judah and Jerusalem are brought into; now will you consider whence those desolations came? H. 2-4. It would seem that this appeal would be resistless, since that ruin of their fellow-countrymen had been so terrible, and withal was so recent and fresh before their minds. But the infatuation of sin defies all reason, and sets at naught all our calculations as to what men ought rationally to do or to think. This reference made by the Lord to His unwearied and most earnest labors through His prophets to reclaim and save the people has appeared frequently before in the writings of Jeremiah, yet here with the addition of this striking statement of the substance of His appeal: “Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!” In most brief and expressive terms God implores His people not to give their hearts to idol-gods and to rebellion against Himself, speaking of such a course as being “this abominable thing that I hate.” What could be more detestable in His sight than such sin! It was cruel wrong against Himself personally; it outraged all truth and reason; it could not fail of being utterly ruinous to themselves, both because of the horrible vices which it introduced and fostered, because of its terribly polluting influence upon their own souls, and because of the judgments for such sin, which, as a God both benevolent and just, He must bring upon them for it, even to their destruction. The passage has a rich significance as applied to all sin in all ages, for all sin has the nature of idolatry. It is always rebellion against God; it always gives the heart to some other god than Jehovah; it is always "that abominable thing which He hates," and He always and everywhere implores men not to do it, because it will surely be their ruin. It will of itself punish them, and over and above its own natural influences and results, God will and must make it work the ruin of all who will not repent and forsake it. H. C. 4. This abominable thing which I hate.** God Himself, we have always understood, hates sin with a most authentic, celestial and eternal hatred. The path of it is the path of a flaming sword; he that has eyes may see it, walking inexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible, through the chaotic gulf of human history, and everywhere burning the false and the deadworthy from the true and lifeworthy; making all human history a God's cosmos in place of a devil's chaos. So it is in the end; even so, to every man who is a man and has eyes to see. Carlyle.—If man could understand the unspeakable heinousness of sin, even of one sin, he would sooner plunge into a fiery furnace than commit it. If the sea were made of fire he would sooner seek the companionship of its burning waves and dwell in the midst of them, than endure the pang, the leaden torment which sooner or later must develop itself from every transgression. Catherine Adorna. Into the very texture of the plan of redemption is woven the most emphatic protest against sin in its every form. If its expiation demanded a sacrifice no less costly than the blood of the Son of God, must it not be intrinsically hateful in its own nature, and abominable in the eyes of Him in whose eternal counsels such a sacrifice was decreed? The Cross, then, furnishes no less striking a testimony of God's hostility against sin than it does of His love for sinners. The terrors of the Law, as well as the mercies and proffers of the Gospel, are traced in the letters of the Saviour's blood; if that blood at one time speaks to man in the still small voice of peace and reconciliation, it assures him at another time, in tones of thunder, of God's determination to visit all moral evil with eternal banishment from His presence. E. M. G. All the guilt that lies in foul rebellion against the mildest and most merciful of earthly monarchs; in disobeying the kindest and grieving the best of fathers; in ingratitude to a generous benefactor; in returning cursing for blessing, evil for good, and hatred for favors - in wounding a heart that loves us and the hand that was stretched out to pluck us from destruction; in refusing to please One who, though rich, for our sakes made Himself poor; took our debts on Him and paid them; took our burdens on Him and carried them; and bearing disgrace to crown us with honor, saved our lives at the expense of His own—all that evil, multiplied a thousand and a thousand times, there is in sin. It is a horrible crime committed against a gracious God and a loving Saviour, to say nothing of the injuries our sins have inflicted on ourselves, and the irreparable wrongs they may have done to others. It is from such views that true repentance springs. Guthrie. 11-14. The Lord reiterates His threatening of judgments upon these Jews in Egypt, assuring them they could by no means escape the same utter ruin that had befallen their countrymen. Only a very small remnant, the least fraction of them, would escape. (See verse 28.) 15-18. These verses are a mournful illustration of the madness of sin and of its social power over depraved hearts. All the men who knew that their wives were implicated in idol-worship were prominent in their defence. The women themselves, moreover, were not backward through modesty or any conscious sense of their degradation and guilt; but with the boldest effrontery stood up to avow their eternal devotion to their base idol-worship. Note their reasoning: "It was well with us while we were worshipping our idols." So sinners often reason. "Because vengeance against their evil work is not executed speedily," but the Lord waits long for them to repent, they account this quiet exemption from calamity as the natural prosperity of sinning. So much, say they, comes to us by virtue of our living as we list and doing our own pleasure. Thus they reach the conclusion that sin pays well. Satan cheats their souls into this horrible delusion, and they love to have it so. Then the second stage of their experience is perverted to prop up the same delusion: "Since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven we have wanted all things," etc. They left off, not at all in the way of honestly forsaking their sin by turning to God in penitence, but only because the judgments of God began to fall upon them and break up the worship they would fain have continued as before; and now they strangely impute these calamities to the frown of those senseless gods whose worship they had suspended. So the devil fortifies their wicked purpose with this double delusion. He makes them think that the good they receive in God's forbearance despite of their sin is the natural fruit of their sin, and that the ills which come of their sins really come of their not sinning—i.e., of their being broken off by the judgments of God from the sins they would fain have continued to commit. With such miserable delusions does the great deceiver of human souls mislead them to their damnation! It is awful to think that the native delicacy of the female sex should ever admit of such devotion to rites so impure and polluting! 24-28. Now the Lord sends a special message in addition to what the prophet had said before. He begins with saying, "Yes, you are committed fully to your wickedness and to your idolatry. Let that be understood. You have vowed eternal devotion to those idol-gods, and you intend to perform those vows. Of course it only remains to the mighty God, the great God of your fathers, to visit you with judgments till you are utterly consumed." A very small remnant only will escape, barely enough to be witnesses to the fearful desolation sent on their fellow-sinners, and to know whose words did stand—God's, or their own. We have now followed the prophetic history of the Jews to the point where the last feeble remnant is mainly exterminated in the land of Egypt. This portrayal of their sin and doom is exceedingly rich in its moral lessons for all subsequent ages. All along through the chapters of this prophet we have seen the developments of intense and strange infatuation, as if the people had become demented and lost to all reason and conscience. This infatuation seems to have culminated in this miserable remnant in Egypt, just where those impressive lessons from God's past judgments ought to have opened their eyes at least to their peril if not to their guilt. We stand amazed at such dedopravity, and cannot wonder that the Lord should visit upon it the most terrible inflictions of His rod. The whole Book of Jeremiah shows how slowly the wrath of the Lord arose against even this guilty people; how carefully He exposed to their view their great sin, and held it up in every just and appropriate light as a breach of covenant, an abuse of mercy, an insult to the great God, their Maker and Father, and as done in the face of constant warnings through His prophets, whom for a long time he had been rising early and sending. Interspersed with and following these revelations of their sin were repeated invitations to repentance and assurances of pardon, couched in most tender and touching terms, and sent from the Lord in the gentle tones and oft-flowing tears of this most affectionate prophet. Let us not fail to note that those tones and tears were only a fair representation of the heart of the Lord who selected, inspired and sent him. Verily, all that tender sympathy, faithful reproof, long delay and admonitory forewarnings could do to reclaim and to save guilty men was faithfully and fervently done to save this guilty nation, but in vain. The hour of retribution must therefore come at last. It came, and its vengeance was terrible! Does not all this history bear a startling testimony to the great facts and principles of God's moral government over nations here in time? And more than this, must we not draw from it a fearful inference as to the future doom of all incorrigible sinners who must stand singly to bear the curse of their own unpardoned sin in the world of final retribution? Out of the depths of this history a voice comes up from its underlying truths, witnessing that the end of great sins, unrepented of, must be a great and terrible damnation. H. C. PERIOD OF THE CAPTIVITY. CONDITION OF EXILED JEWS. EFFECTS OF CAPTIVITY: EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRY, EXTENSION OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OF MESSIANIC PROPHECIES, PREPARATION FOR CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. These few words are for Baruch, who has been already before us as the faithful friend, attendant, and amanuensis of the prophet. The date is that remarkable fourth year of Jehoiakim, when (see chap. 36) Baruch wrote out the first complete copy of Jeremiah's prophecies, and was directed by the prophet to read it in the Temple before all the people. If we follow closely the dates as given in this chapter and in chapter 36, we must conclude that Baruch had written out this first complete copy, and had also probably received his commission to go on the ensuing fast-day and read it to the people, but had not yet gone when this message came for him, in good time to prepare him for the trial through which he was soon to pass. H. C. The failure of this last appeal to king and people can scarcely have surprised Jeremiah, but it had a deep effect on his more youthful and ardent disciple. Baruch seems to have hoped that, amid the solemnity of the fast, the people would have been stirred up by his words to a movement of new national and religious life, and Jeremiah addresses him in words fitted to chasten the despair of the too sanguine patriot. He reminds him of God's sovereign right to break down what He had built, and to pluck up what He had planted, and adds: "Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith Jehovah: but thy life will I give thee for a prey"—as if snatched from the net of the destroyer—"in all places whither thou goest." The promise was fulfilled by Baruch's sharing with Jeremiah the protection of Nebuchadnezzar when Jerusalem was taken, and by his afterward finding a refuge in Egypt with the remnant of the Jews. P. S. Jeremiah had already passed through several seasons of stern mental conflict and purifying discipline; Baruch had them yet to pass. This was one of his first lessons: "Forego all your schemes of personal good. As for yourself alone, be content with your bare life as the best God can give; and having the assurance of life, make every sacrifice to which God may call you most cheerfully. If you can do anything for the truth of God; anything to bear testimony against the sins of your countrymen; anything to lessen the labors and lighten the griefs of the patriarchal prophet under whose shadow you walk, do it cheerfully, and even gladly. But dismiss forever all aspirations after great things for yourself." It is pleasant to think of Jeremiah as having thoroughly sounded the depths of this counsel and drank in its spirit. He had ample occasion to act upon it subsequently; arrested by the savage Jehoiakim and some of his kindred spirits; cast into dungeons, darkness and mire; starved, tortured, and in peril of his life; kept in confinement months and years during the reign of Zedekiah; yet still charged with successive messages more and more severe and terrible to the king on his throne, and to his princes inflated with pride. H. C. "Seekest thou great things for thyself?" said the prophet; "seek them not." Why? Because there is no greatness in things. The only greatness is unselfish love. Even self-denial in itself is nothing, is almost a mistake. Only a great purpose or a mightier love can justify the waste. H. Drummond.—He only is great of heart who floods the world with a great affection. He only is great of mind who stirs the world with great thoughts. He only is great of will who does something to shape the world to a great career. And he is greatest who does the most of all these things, and does them best. R. D. Hitchcock. Greatness is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a God-made great man; teach or preach, or labor as you will, everlasting difference is set between one man's capacity and another's, and this God-given supremacy is the priceless thing, always just as rare in the world at one time as another. What you can manufacture or communicate you can lower the price of; but this mental supremacy is incommunicable; you will never multiply its quantity, nor lower its price; and nearly the best thing men can generally do is to set themselves not to the attainment, but the discovery of this: learning to know gold when we see it from iron-glance, and diamonds from flint-sand, being for most of us a more profitable employment than trying to make diamonds out of our own charcoal. Ruskin. A magnanimous spirit is a spirit to bear and to do great things; to bear trials with fortitude; to control the temper under great provocations, and even to throw a benignant smile upon the face of a foe; to yield ingenuous sympathy to those who are not of us, and rejoice in their success; to carry out convictions of duty at the sacrifice of interests; to forget self in the cause of God and of humanity; to brave with a constant heart the greatest perils for the sake of great principles and the common good. Homilist.—Nothing but the practical habit of overcoming our own selfishness, and of familiarly encountering privations and discomfort on account of others, will ever enable us to do it when required. And therefore I am firmly persuaded that indulgence infallibly produces selfishness and hardness of heart, and that nothing but a pretty severe discipline and control can lay the foundation of a magnanimous character. Lord Jeffrey.—In the final analysis, self-worship is at the root of human misery. Self-love is the virus of melancholy. In a man of genius it breeds egotism; in a religious nature, Pharisaism; in an invalid, a desire to suffer before the looking-glass. No man can be happy who loves himself better than his neighbor. Health and wealth do not insure happiness when a devouring egotism is feeding on the heart. The most dazzling success, which carries its votary to the summit of power, has its Nemesis in a strange satiety and loathing of life. Van Santword. The lowliest and the humblest in endowments is just as important in his place as the most brilliantly gifted. The great life in God's sight is not the conspicuous one, but the life that fills the place which it was made to fill and does the work which it was made to do. God asks not great things; He asks only simple faithfulness, the quiet doing of what He allots. His design for each life is that it shall reach a holy character, do a good work in the world, fill a worthy place, however humble, and fill it well, so as to honor God and bless the world. J. R. Miller. In the presence of great ambitions, what do men care for viewless prizes in invisible worlds? Men do not let the dust around them settle long enough to disclose eternal things. Notice the precise attitude of the man of the world to religious things. He does not deny them. That would imply consideration, and he does not consider. He simply ignores. He may get glimpses of them. But heaven never gives a man an instantaneous photograph. He cannot take it on the wing. He must pause a little. The indifference that comes from insensitiveness is the hardest to overcome. Light works at a disadvantage when it appeals to defective vision. Truth works at a similar disadvantage when it takes hold of faculties that are partly benumbed, whether that comes from misuse or lack of use. Hardness of heart stands for a common fact. There are people to whom religion no longer appeals. It does not find them. There are multitudes of people with whom an argument is useless. There is no use preaching to them. They are encased. They are proof against proof. The intellectual approach to them is barred. In such cases there is yet one door—the door of a good example. If men turn from preaching they may yet be reached by an appeal to the heart, and that comes cogently only on the path of an experience. Apologetics must get out of books. Men care little for the formal arguments. A great life was lived once, and the world bows to it as the unanswerable argument for Heaven. Interior. For thyself. All forms of sin are ultimately resolvable into the principle of selfism. What is worldliness, whether as covetousness or sensuality, but the aim of a being who has lost the infinite good to substitute and appropriate the finite? Hypocrisy is the mask he wears to conceal his aim; anger and impatience the results of impediment and disappointment; envy and malice the emotions excited at the superiority or the success of others; and hatred and cruelty the reaction of thwarted self-will. Ambition is an attempt at lofty self-isolation; pride the feeling that we have achieved, or can achieve, such distinction; and despondency and moroseness the offspring of disappointed desire. Detached from God, man's relation to every other object is false; he himself is a moral falsehood; and every breach of veracity is but a particular form of the great falsehood. Living out of harmony with God and with himself, variance with his fellow-man follows of course. Lawlessness of every kind is but the result of man's attempting to be a law to and by himself. All human governments are still occupied in reconciling law and liberty—in restraining the fierce collisions of human wills. And "whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not; ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust." Impenitence is self-satisfaction unwilling to submit to God; the choice to remain at variance with Him. Unreasonableness is self-will substituted for reason and conscience. And unbelief is self-trust as opposed to trust in God. "But is not self-love of moral obligation?" Undeniably: it is to be the measure of our love to others. But the ground of the obligation to love ourselves is the same as that on which we are required to love our fellow-man—our relation to God. My moral worth consists in my having been made in the image of God, capable of entering into His plans, and of sharing in His glory. But if God be lost from my soul, I cannot be said strictly to love my integral and proper self, but only the ungodly remains of myself. The act is essentially different in kind, for it is directed toward an essentially different object. A moral element is wanting in the love answering to the element wanting in the object. It is the idolatry of a self from which God is absent. An object of self-compassion I may rightly be; but this implies a desire of self-restoration, and of restoration to God. And it is only as I "lose myself," surrender my self-predominance, and welcome God back again to His throne within, that my regard for myself can be morally good. J. Harris. Arrangement of Jeremiah's Prophecies. The arrangement of the several prophecies with so very little apparent method and chronological order is accounted for by the circumstances narrated in this chapter. It was to both Baruch and Jeremiah a season of extreme peril. Now they are flying to escape arrest, and perhaps immediate death; anon they are imprisoned. Next the prophet is tortured, and at length hurried from his country to take his lot with the poor exiles who fled into Egypt. So far as is known to us, no other book of prophecies in the Bible was compiled under circumstances so unfavorable to method and order. Certainly no other one exhibits such a lack of these qualities. *The book and the condition of the men who made it are remarkably correlated to each other, a fact which goes strongly to confirm its genuineness. It is what ought to be expected from the circumstances under which it was compiled. . . . His book is valuable to us almost exclusively for its great moral lessons. These are above rubies. Here we see delineated the full administration of God's government not over Judah alone, but all the prominent nations of Western Asia. It also reveals God in His relations to His Church and people: how He dealt with them, how He felt toward them, how He made the very tears of His prophet witness to His own tenderness of heart, with what severity He denounces their sins, with what patience He bore with their long-continued abuse. H. C. 46:1 THE word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations. 2. Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh-neco king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah. 3, 4 Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle. Harness the horses, and get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of 5 mail. Wherefore have I seen it? they are dismayed and are turned backward; and their 6 mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: terror is on every side, saith the LORD. Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the 7 river Euphrates have they stumbled and fallen. Who is this that riseth up like the Nile, whose 8 waters toss themselves like the rivers? Egypt riseth up like the Nile, and his waters toss themselves like the rivers: and he saith, I will rise up, I will cover the earth; I will destroy the city 9 and the inhabitants thereof. Go up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men go forth: Cush and Put, that handle the shield; and the Ludim, that handle and bend 10 the bow. For that day is a day of the Lord, the LORD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour and be satiate, and shall drink its fill of their blood: for the Lord, the LORD of hosts, hath a sacrifice in the north 11 country by the river Euphrates. Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of 12 Egypt: in vain dost thou use many medicines; there is no healing for thee. The nations have heard of thy shame, and the earth is full of thy cry: for the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty, they are fallen both of them together. 13 The word that the LORD spake to Jeremiah the prophet, how that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon should come and smite the land of Egypt. 14 Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph and in Tahpanhes: say ye, 15 Stand forth, and prepare thee; for the sword hath devoured round about thee. Why are thy 16 strong ones swept away? they stood not, because the LORD did drive them. He made many to stumble, yea, they fell one upon another: and they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own 17 people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword. They cried there, Pharaoh 18 king of Egypt is but a noise; he hath let the appointed time pass by. As I live, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts, surely like Tabor among the mountains, and like Carmel 19 by the sea, so shall he come. O thou daughter that dwellest in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity: for Noph shall become a desolation, and shall be burnt up, without inhabi 20 tant. Egypt is a very fair heifer; but destruction out of the north is come, it is come. 21 Also her hired men in the midst of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back, they are fled away together, they did not stand: for the day of their calamity is come upon 22 them, the time of their visitation. The sound thereof shall go like the serpent; for they shall 23 march with an army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood. They shall cut down her forest, saith the LORD, though it cannot be searched; because they are more than 24 the locusts, and are innumerable. The daughter of Egypt shall be put to shame; she shall 25 be delivered into the hand of the people of the north. The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saith: Behold, I will punish Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with her gods, and her 26 kings; even Pharaoh, and them that trust in him: and I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterwards it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the 27 LORD. But fear not thou, O Jacob my servant, neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, 28 and shall be quiet and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. Fear not thou, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD; for I am with thee: for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee, but I will not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee with judgement, and will in no wise leave thee unpunished. 47:1 The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines, before that Pharaoh smote Gaza. 2. Thus saith the LORD: Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow the land and all that is therein, the city and them that 3 dwell therein: and the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl. At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers look not back to their children for feebleness of hands; 4 because of the day that cometh to spoil all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Zidon every helper that remaineth: for the LORD will spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the isle 5 of Caphtor. Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nought, the remnant of 6 their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself? O thou sword of the LORD, how long will it 7 be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest, and be still. How canst thou be quiet, seeing the LORD hath given thee a charge? against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore, there hath he appointed it. Chaps. 46-51. Compare these prophecies against Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazor, Elam, Babylon, with similar prophecies of Isa. 13-23; Ezek. 25-32; Amos 1:3-2:3. W. J. B. Chap. 46. In this chapter are two distinct prophecies concerning Egypt. The first (verses 1-12) appears to have been delivered at the time that the Egyptian army lay along the banks of the Euphrates, waiting to oppose the entrance of Nebuchadnezzar into Syria, in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. The two armies came to an engagement near the city of Carchemish, the same which Pharaoh-necho was going against when he was opposed by King Josiah (2 Chron. 35:20). The event of the battle proved very unfortunate to the Egyptians, who were routed with a prodigious slaughter, as is here foretold by the prophet in a very animated style, and with great poetic energy and liveliness of coloring. In the third and fourth verses, the mighty preparations of the Egyptians for war are described, which occasions the prophet, who foresees the defeat, to express his astonishment at an event so contrary to what might have been expected; but he accounts for it by ascribing it to the disposition of the Almighty, who had spread terror all around, and had decreed that neither swiftness nor strength should avail the owners, so as to save them from the impending overthrow (verses 5, 6). In the verses that follow next, the king of Egypt is represented as beginning his march with all the ostentation and insolence of presumed success. He is compared to a mighty river, the Nile or the Euphrates, when it swells above its banks, and threatens to overwhelm the country with ruin and desolation (verses 7, 8). He is heard calling aloud to the nations of which his army is composed, giving them the signal for action, and rousing them to deeds of desperate valor (verse 9). But all in vain; the time is come for God to avenge Himself of His ancient foes; they are doomed to slaughter, to fall a bloody sacrifice on the plains of the north (verse 10). The whole concludes with an apostrophe to the daughter of Egypt, whose wound is pronounced incurable, and her disgrace universally known; forasmuch as the number of her warriors have served only to augment the general disorder, and more effectually to destroy each other. 1. The word of the Lord, etc. This verse is a general title to the collection of prophecies contained in this and the five following chapters. The nations spoken of are the same as those of which an enumeration is made (chap. 25:19-26). These prophecies were not delivered all at the same time. To some the date is annexed; in others it is left uncertain. Blayney. 1-12. In this passage we have the fullest account that has come down to us of one of the most important among the "decisive battles of the world." The contending powers are Egypt and Babylon, the contending princes Neko (Pharaoh-necho), the son of Psamatik I., and Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar—the founder of the second empire of the Chaldeans. Neko, having (in B.C. 608) defeated Josiah, king of Judah, at Megiddo, on the border of the great plain of Esdraelon, pressed forward to meet the "house with which he had war at Carchemish by Euphrates" (2 Chron. 35:20). Complete success for the time attended his expedition. He made himself master of the whole tract of territory intervening between the "river of Egypt" (Wady-el-Arish) on the one hand and the river Euphrates on the other (2 K. 24:7). Syria in its widest extent, Phoenicia, Philistia and Judea submitted to him. It seemed as if the days of the Thothmeses and Amenhoteps were about to return, and Egypt to be once more the predominant power in the Eastern world, the "lady of nations," the sovereign at one and the same time of Africa and of Asia. Had Babylon acquiesced in the loss of territory, her prestige would have been gone, and her empire would probably have soon crumbled into dust. Egypt and Media would have stood face to face as the two rivals for supremacy; and possibly the entire course of the world's later history might have been changed. But Nabopolassar appreciated aright the importance of the crisis, and before Egypt had had time to consolidate her power in the newly conquered provinces, resolved on making a great effort to recover them. In the year B.C. 605—three years after Neko's great success—having collected his troops and made his preparations, he sent his son and heir, Nebuchadnezzar, at the head of a large army, to reconquer the lost territory. Nebuchadnezzar marched upon Carchemish, the strong frontier fortress near the Euphrates, which had originally been the capital of the early Hittite kingdom, and the site of which is now marked by the ruins called "Jerablus" or "Jerabus." Here he found Neko encamped at the head of a considerable force, in part, no doubt, Egyptians, but mainly Ethiopians, Libyans and Greco-Carians from Asia Minor, perhaps the "Lydians" of Jeremiah (verse 9). The battle poetically described by Jeremiah was fought. The Egyptian force of foot, horse and chariots was completely defeated; a great carnage took place (verse 10); and the few survivors fled away in dismay (verse 5), evacuating province after province, and retiring within their own frontier. Nebuchadnezzar followed on their traces, at least as far south as Jerusalem, where he received the submission of Jehoiakim (2 K. 24 : 1), and from which he carried off a portion of the Temple treasures (Dan. 1 : 1). He would probably have gone further and invaded Egypt had not the news reached him (late in B.C. 605) of his father's decease, which necessitated his own immediate return to his capital. Accompanied by a small force lightly equipped, he crossed the desert by way of Damascus and Tadmor, while the heavy-armed troops, the baggage, and the prisoners made their way to Babylon by the usual but circuitous route, down the valley of the Orontes, across Northern Syria to Carchemish, and then along the banks of the Euphrates. We have one profane account of this expedition, entering far less into details than Jeremiah, but in complete accord with his statements, and supplying various points of interest, which have been worked into the above narrative. The Babylonian historian, Berosus, as quoted by Josephus, says, speaking of Nebuchadnezzar: "When his father, Nabopolassar, heard that the satrap appointed to govern Egypt, and the districts of Cœlesyria and Phœnicia, had revolted from him, as he was not himself able any longer to endure hardships, he assigned a certain portion of his army to his son, Nebuchadnezzar, who was in the flower of his youth, and sent him against the rebel. And when Nebuchadnezzar had fallen in with him, and engaged him in battle, he defeated him, and from this beginning proceeded to bring the country under his own rule. Now it chanced that his father, Nabopolassar, just at this time fell sick, and departed this life, having reigned one-and-twenty years. Nebuchadnezzar shortly after heard of his father's decease, and, having arranged the affairs of Egypt and the other countries, and appointed certain of his friends to conduct to Babylon the captives which he had taken from the Jews, the Phœnicians, the Syrians and the parts about Egypt, together with the heavy-armed troops and the baggage, started himself with a very small escort, and, travelling by the way of the wilderness, reached Babylon." G. R. 2. Carchemish.** This great battle was the first decisive exploit of the young prince, Nebuchadnezzar. The latter followed up his great victory with energy; drove the vanquished Egyptians back to Egypt; himself subdued Syria and indeed most of the powers of Western Asia; came upon Jerusalem and subjugated it in this very year, the fourth of Jehoiakim; and then returning home, ascended the throne recently made vacant by the death of his father. The entire political aspect of Asia was suddenly changed. 11,12. The fatal blow has fallen on Egypt! You may see it in the changed tone of the prophet's graphic touches: "Let Egypt go to Gilead and take balm thence to heal her deep and deadly wounds!" But all Gilead can avail her nothing! All the nations hear of her hopeless defeat. 13-15. Suddenly the scene changes. We are no longer at Carchemish on the Euphrates, but in Egypt itself. The victor there is the invader and conqueror here. At no long interval Nebuchadnezzar follows his smitten foe to his own cities to chastise and subjugate him more thoroughly. In the usual manner of the prophets when predicting an invasion, Jeremiah summons Egypt to be in readiness for the devouring sword, and but too plainly intimates that her valiant men will be swept away. God is against them; how can they stand? H. C. 15. The real cause of the decline of empires. "Because the Lord did drive them." If we read ordinary histories, the overthrow of any monarchy is traced to such an invasion or to the loss of such a battle, or to some other ordinary and well-known cause. And no doubt it is true that, through and by these things, the results have been brought about. But there is ever a moral cause which lies behind, and it is to that must be traced up the series of events which have followed. The history of most ancient empires, in their origin, progress, decline and fall, has been very much the same. A hardy, temperate, courageous people, driven by necessity or attracted by the hope of gain, fall upon some decrepit power, destroy it, and on its ruins build their own fortunes. For a while the same courage and virtue which enabled them to gain possession of their prize are manifested in consolidating their power and in building up their rule. But after the lapse of years, they have gained secure foothold, and are able to live less on their guard against enemies. Wealth and luxury increase and exert their enervating power. In this soil the vices, whatever they may be, to which as a people they are predisposed, grow rapidly and affect the national habit and character. Then their decay has begun. It hastens rapidly on until, in their turn, this once victorious people are vanquished, overthrown by a nation more bold and righteous and therefore more powerful than themselves. This law can be readily traced in the histories of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and in more modern instances as well. P. C. The sufficient reason is found in the action of Jehovah. Jehovah drove them. All forces that find expression in matter are completely at God's disposal. He can paralyze the mightiest army in a moment. The mighty man is not to glory in his might (chap. 9: 23). True it is that God lets the strong man do generally all his strength permits him to do. The success military men look for is on the side of the strongest battalions. But then all strength of this sort fails against spiritual strength. Not all the armies of Rome and not all the wild beasts of the amphitheatre could persuade a single true Christian to forsake Christ. The strength of this world achieves great things in its own field, but directly it goes beyond and tries to interhere with conscience and spiritual aspirations, its weakness is made manifest. Y. 18. The great King, Jehovah of hosts, solemnly affirms that thy destroyer, O Egypt, shall come with supposing majesty and power, as Tabor stands pre-eminently glorious among the mountains and Carmel by the sea; therefore prepare for going into captivity. The point of the comparison is Nebuchadnezzar, in pre-eminence and power like Tabor and Carmel. Tabor lifts its summit seventeen hundred and fifty-five feet, and Carmel fifteen hundred above the level of the Mediterranean. With majesty befitting the subject, God assumes here the descriptive epithet, "The King, whose name is Jehovah of hosts." Being King of the hosts of heaven, why should He not also be recognized as King of nations in this lower world? So also chaps. 48: 15; 51: 57. 25,26. This poetic and boldly descriptive prophecy closes here with a very plain statement of the main facts of the case. God will bring terrible judgments upon the great and idolatrous cities of Egypt; upon all those idologs and "upon all who put their trust in her"—which last clause refers plainly to the Jews, and especially to that last feeble remnant whose history we followed in chaps. 41-44. The passage closes with an intimation that the control of the Chaldeans over Egypt would ultimately cease and better days return. H. C. 26. Punishment not destruction, but purification and preservation. In verse 28, in chap. 48: 21, and in chap. 49: 6, 39, we have similar assurances that "afterward," when God's judgments have done their work, the chastised and afflicted nations shall be restored. Such promise is here made to Egypt. It is repeated in Ezek. 29: 8-14. And from this reiterated word, concerning not one people only, but so many, we gather the intent and purpose of God in regard to all His punishments which He sends upon men—that they are not for men's destruction, but for their purification and preservation. C. 27, 28. God's care of His own. The need of the fullest possible assurance. Jehovah, who has visited Israel with many and great sufferings, will also visit other peoples. Egypt is spoken of in this chapter; and Philistia, Moab, Ammon and Babylon in following chapters. Hence the need of Divine words such as would keep the believing element in Israel calm and confident through all these disturbances, and so it ever is meant to be with the true Israel of God. God is ready with comforting words amid the necessary turmoil of external conditions. The solid grounds of this assurance. They lie in Jehovah's continued connection with Israel, and His purposes for its safety, peace and prosperity. We have no assurance in ourselves or our circumstances, but the moment we can feel that we are in God's hands, that He has plans with respect to us and a future preparing for us, then assurance is possible. God never tells man to take courage and put away fear without giving good reason for the exhortation, and showing that fear is rather the unreasonable feeling to allow. The moment we can take in the full force of that wonderful word, "I am with thee," then we are freed from alarms and from dependence on the shifting phenomena of this present life. The difference God will make between Israel and other nations. A full end is to be made of them. And a full end has been made of them. Here, of course, the distinction must be borne in mind between nations and the individuals composing them. A nation is but a certain arrangement of human beings, and this arrangement may be productive of such wrong feelings and such danger to the world as to make it fitting that the nation should cease. But the people composing the nation remain, and their descendants pass into new and better combinations. So with regard to Israel; the people who are to return and be in rest and without fear, the people who are not to be made a full end of, are those of whom literal Israel is but the type. There are really but two nations in the world—those who believe in God and in His Son, and show their faith by their works; and those who trust in themselves, in their power and their purposes. Of all these latter God must make a full end, if in no other way by bringing them to see their folly, so that they may turn to the ways of faith. Jehovah's chastisement of His own even while He protects them. There is a purpose in all suffering, a real need for it. Men seem to be mixed up indiscriminately, and suffering looks as if it often fell irrespective of character, but this is only a seeming. The suffering of Israel, though it may look the same outwardly, is really as different as possible from the suffering of Egypt. There is a fire which ends in the destruction of what passes through it. It must be so, for the thing is destructible and shows its nature when the fire tries it. The same fire attacking indestructible things only separates destructible accretions from them, and consumes these accretions away. God's intention is that the believer may be able to say, "I cannot be destroyed in this furnace of trials; I cannot go to pieces as others do. But still I must remain in it for a while; I must submit to God's wise ordinances, so that at last I may return to my true rest and fear no more forever." Y. The preservation of the Jews through so many ages, and the total destruction of their enemies, are wonderful events; and are made still more wonderful by being signified beforehand by the spirit of prophecy, as particularly in the passage before us. Their preservation is really one of the most illustrious acts of Divine providence. They are dispersed among all nations, yet not confounded with any. The drops of rain which fall, nay the great rivers which flow into the ocean, are soon mingled with and lost in that immense body of waters. And the same, in all human probability, would have been the fate of the Jews; they would have been mingled and lost in the common mass of mankind; but, on the contrary, they flow into all parts of the world, mix with all nations, and yet keep separate from all. They still live as a distinct people; and yet they nowhere live according to their own laws, nowhere elect their own magistrates, nowhere enjoy the full exercise of their religion. Their solemn feasts and sacrifices are limited to one certain place; and that hath been now for many ages in the hands of strangers and aliens, who will not suffer them to come thither. No people have continued unmixed so long as they have done; not only of those who have sent colonies into foreign countries, but even of those who have abided in their own country. The northern nations have come in swarms into the more southern parts of Europe; but where are they now to be discerned and distinguished? The Gauls went forth in great bodies to seek their fortune in foreign parts; but what traces or footsteps of them are now remaining anywhere? In France, who can separate the race of the ancient Gauls from the various other people who from time to time have settled there? In Spain, who can distinguish between the first possessors, the Spaniards, and the Goths and Moors, who conquered and kept possession of the country for some ages? In England, who can pretend to say certainly which families are derived from the ancient Britons, and which from the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans? The most ancient and honorable pedigrees can be traced up only to a certain period; and beyond that there is nothing but conjecture and uncertainty, obscurity and ignorance. But the Jews can go up higher than any nation; they can even deduce their pedigree from the beginning of the world. They may not know from what particular tribe or family they are descended; but they know certainly that they all sprung from the stock of Abraham. And yet the contempt with which they have been treated, and the hardships they have undergone in almost all countries, should, one would think, have made them desirous to forget or renounce their original; but they profess it; they glory in it; and after so many wars, massacres and persecutions, they still subsist; they are still very numerous. And what but a supernatural power could have preserved them in such a manner, as no other nation upon earth has been preserved? Nor is the providence of God less remarkable in the destruction of their enemies than in their own preservation. For, from the beginning, who have been the great enemies and oppressors of the Jewish nation, removed them from their own land and compelled them into captivity and slavery? The Egyptians afflicted them much, and detained them in bondage several years. The Assyrians carried away captive the Ten Tribes of Israel; and the Babylonians afterward the two remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The Syro-Macedonians, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, cruelly persecuted them; and the Romans utterly dissolved the Jewish state, and dispersed the people so as that they have never been able to recover their city and country again. And where are now these great and famous monarchies, which in their turn subdued and oppressed the people of God? Are they not vanished as a dream; and not only their power, but their very names, lost in the earth? The Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians were overthrown and entirely subjugated by the Persians; and the Persians, it is remarkable, were the restorers of the Jews as well as the destroyers of their enemies. The Syro-Macedonians were swallowed up by the Romans; and the Roman Empire, great and powerful as it was, was broken into pieces by the incursions of the northern nations; while the Jews are subsisting as a distinct people at this day. And what a wonder of Providence is it, that the vanquished should so many ages survive the victors; and the former be spread all over the world, while the latter are no more? Bp. Newton. beginning of the world. They may not know from what particular tribe or family they are descended; but they know certainly that they all sprung from the stock of Abraham. And yet the contempt with which they have been treated, and the hardships they have undergone in almost all countries, should, one would think, have made them desirous to forget or renounce their original; but they profess it; they glory in it; and after so many wars, massacres and persecutions, they still subsist; they are still very numerous. And what but a supernatural power could have preserved them in such a manner, as no other nation upon earth has been preserved? Nor is the providence of God less remarkable in the destruction of their enemies than in their own preservation. For, from the beginning, who have been the great enemies and oppressors of the Jewish nation, removed them from their own land and compelled them into captivity and slavery? The Egyptians afflicted them much, and detained them in bondage several years. The Assyrians carried away captive the Ten Tribes of Israel; and the Babylonians afterward the two remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The Syro-Macedonians, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, cruelly persecuted them; and the Romans utterly dissolved the Jewish state, and dispersed the people so as that they have never been able to recover their city and country again. And where are now these great and famous monarchies, which in their turn subdued and oppressed the people of God? Are they not vanished as a dream; and not only their power, but their very names, lost in the earth? The Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians were overthrown and entirely subjugated by the Persians; and the Persians, it is remarkable, were the restorers of the Jews as well as the destroyers of their enemies. The Syro-Macedonians were swallowed up by the Romans; and the Roman Empire, great and powerful as it was, was broken into pieces by the incursions of the northern nations; while the Jews are subsisting as a distinct people at this day. And what a wonder of Providence is it, that the vanquished should so many ages survive the victors; and the former be spread all over the world, while the latter are no more? Bp. Newton. Chap. 47. This short chapter is devoted to the Philistines—for several centuries the formidable border enemies of the Hebrew people on the west and southwest. They come in the same order here (next after Egypt) as in chap. 25:19, 20. Several other prophets speak of the fall of the Philistine principalities—e.g., 48 : 1 Of Moab. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel : Woe unto Nebo ! for it is laid waste ; Kiriathaim is put to shame, it is taken : Misgab is put to shame and broken down. The praise of Moab is no more ; in Heshbon they have devised evil against her, Come, and let us cut her off from being a nation. Thou also, O Madmen, shalt be brought to silence ; the sword shall pursue thee. The sound of a cry from Horonaim, spoiling and great destruction ! Moab is destroyed ; her little ones have caused a cry to be heard. For by the ascent of Luhith with continual weeping shall they go up ; for in the going down of Horonaim they have heard the distress of the cry of destruction. Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness. For, because thou hast trusted in thy works and in thy treasures, thou also shalt be taken : and Chemosh shall go forth into captivity, his priests and his princes together. And the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape ; the valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be destroyed ; as the LORD hath spoken. Give wings unto Moab, that she may fly and get her away : and her cities shall become a desolation, without any to dwell therein. Cursed be he that doeth the work of 11 the LORD negligently, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity : therefore his taste remaineth in 12 him, and his scent is not changed. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will send unto him them that pour off, and they shall pour him off ; and they shall empty 13 his vessels, and break their bottles in pieces. And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the 14 house of Israel was ashamed of Beth-el their confidence. How say ye, We are mighty men, 15 and valiant men for the war ? Moab is laid waste, and they are gone up into her cities, and his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter, saith the King, whose name is the 16,17. LORD of hosts. The calamity of Moab is near to come, and his affliction hasteth fast. All ye that are round about him, bemoan him, and all ye that know his name ; say, How is the 18 strong staff broken, the beautiful rod ! O thou daughter that dwellest in Dibon, come down from thy glory, and sit in thirst ; for the spoiler of Moab is come up against thee, he hath 19 destroyed thy strong holds. O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way, and espy : ask him 20 that fleeth, and her that escapeth ; say, What hath been done ? Moab is put to shame ; for 21 it is broken down : howl and cry ; tell ye it in Arnon, that Moab is laid waste. And judgement is come upon the plain country ; upon Holon, and upon Jahzah, and upon Mephaath ; 22, 23 and upon Dibon, and upon Nebo, and upon Beth-diblathaim ; and upon Kiriathaim, and 24 upon Beth-gamul, and upon Beth-meon ; and upon Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon all 25 the cities of the land of Moab, far or near. The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is bro- 26 ken, saith the LORD. Make ye him drunken ; for he magnified himself against the LORD : 27 and Moab shall wallow in his vomit, and he also shall be in derision. For was not Israel a derision unto thee ? was he found among thieves ? for as often as thou speakest of him, thou 28 waggest the head. O ye inhabitants of Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the rock ; and be 29 like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth. We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud ; his loftiness, and his pride, and his arrogancy, and the 30 haughtiness of his heart. I know his wrath, saith the LORD, that it is nought ; his boastings 31 have wrought nothing. Therefore will I howl for Moab ; yea, I will cry out for all Moab : for the men of Kir-heres shall they mourn. With more than the weeping of Jazer will I weep 32 for thee, O vine of Sibmah : thy branches passed over the sea, they reached even to the sea 33 of Jazer : upon thy summer fruits and upon thy vintage the spoiler is fallen. And gladness and joy is taken away, from the fruitful field and from the land of Moab ; and I have caused wine to cease from the winepresses : none shall tread with shouting ; the shouting shall be 34 no shouting. From the cry of Heshbon even unto Elealeh, even unto Jahaz have they uttered their voice, from Zoar even unto Horonaim, to Eglath-shelishiyah : for the waters of 35. Nimrim also shall become desolate. Moreover I will cause to cease in Moab, saith the LORD, 36 him that offereth in the high place, and him that burneth incense to his gods. Therefore mine heart soundeth for Moab like pipes, and mine heart soundeth like pipes for the men of Kir-heres : 37 therefore the abundance that he hath gotten is perished. For every head is bald, and every 38 beard clipped : upon all the hands are cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth. On all the housetops of Moab and in the streets thereof there is lamentation every where : for I have 39 broken Moab like a vessel wherein is no pleasure, saith the LORD. How is it broken down ! how do they howl ! how hath Moab turned the back with shame ! so shall Moab become a 40 derision and a dismaying to all that are round about him. For thus saith the LORD : Behold, 41 he shall fly as an eagle, and shall spread out his wings against Moab. Kerioth is taken, and the strong holds are surprised, and the heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day shall be 42 as the heart of a woman in her pangs. And Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, 43 because he hath magnified himself against the LORD. Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are 44 upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab, saith the LORD. He that fleeth from the fear shall fall into the pit ; and he that getteth up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare : for I will bring 45 upon her, even upon Moab, the year of their visitation, saith the LORD. They that fled stand without strength under the shadow of Heshbon : for a fire is gone forth out of Heshbon, and a flame from the midst of Sihon, and hath devoured the corner of Moab, and the crown of the 46 head of the tumultuous ones. Woe unto thee, O Moab ! the people of Chemosh is undone : 47 for thy sons are taken away captive, and thy daughters into captivity. Yet will I bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days, saith the LORD. Thus far is the judgement of Moab. Chap. 48. The succession of pictures of approaching judgment which Jeremiah draws are not monotonous repetitions of the same description. They are definite and distinctively applicable to the respective subjects of them. The grounds of this judgment are given in the revelation of the sins of Moab. The head and front of her offence is pride (e.g., verse 29). Other characteristics are closely related—viz.: trust in wealth and material resources (verse 7); self-indulgent ease (verse 11); boastfulness (verse 14); scorn (verse 27); defiance of heaven (verse 26). Such a catalogue of offences is peculiarly hateful to God. Sins of appetite and passion are partly the result of weakness. The culpability of them is less than that of the intellectual and spiritual sins by all the weight of temptations which arise out of the natural constitution of man. For such sins as those of Moab there is no excuse. They are nearest to the most diabolical wickedness. Adam fell by a sin of appetite; Satan by a sin of spiritual pride. Adeney. 3-6. The outcries of warriors spoiling her cities and the bitter wails of the spoiled and fleeing people are heard throughout the land. Luhith, on the side of the mountain as the fugitives ascended, and Horonain, on the other side where they descended, are here named in connection to say that this sorrowful troop wept as they went up, and wailed as on the other side they went down. H. C. 7. Trusted in thy treasures.** Riches are not evil things in themselves. The gifts of God in nature, or the fruits of man's industry, they are valuable just because they have in them some serviceableness for human wants. Money is not the root of all evil, but the love of it (1 Tim. 6 : 10). It is they who trust in riches who find it impossible to enter into the kingdom of God (Mark 10 : 24). But riches are snares, and the possessor of them had need beware of the dangers they necessarily bring. When the servant becomes a god the degraded worshipper is on the road to ruin. Before God we are judged by what we are, and by our use of gifts. Adeney. 7-9. Moab had probably trusted in her great exploits and in her accumulated treasures. Therefore is she doomed to be taken forcibly by her enemies. Chemosh was the national god of Moab (see 1 K. 11 : 7; 2 K. 23 : 13), whose worship Solomon introduced and Josiah exterminated. That the god himself, with his priests and princes, together goes into captivity, is a triumph of Jehovah over them to show all people their utter vanity. 10. Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently.** The case contemplated is not that of one who pretends to do the work better than he actually does, but of him who fails to do it vigorously and effectually, as the last clause being parallel shows—“who” through false pity “restrains his sword from blood.” The spirit of the Lord and consequently of His prophet is fired with the sense of justice and its now inexorable demands. The Moabites must fall, and woe to him whom God appoints as His executioner if he shrink from his work! The passage reminds us of Judges 5 : 23 : “Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord; curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” H. C. God executes His judgments upon sinners by the ministry of men, and those oftentimes as great sinners as those that suffer. He had declared by Jeremiah His purpose of making the Chaldeans His instruments in punishing the Jews and the neighboring countries. (See chap. 25 : 9.) Their success answered the prediction, and Nebuchadnezzar seems to have looked upon Jeremiah as a prophet, and had a particular regard to his character. (See chap. 39 : 11.) Being thus assured that he had a commission from God, he might confidently proceed in his conquests, and it would have been a fault to have shown mercy to those whom he had good reason to believe that God had marked out for destruction. W. Lowth. Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently, that pretends to do it, but does it not to purpose, makes a show of serving God's glory, but is really serving his own ends, and carries on the work of the Lord no farther than will suit his own purposes; or that is slothful in business for God, and takes neither care nor pains to do it as it should be done (Mal. 1 : 14). Let not such deceive themselves, for God will not thus be mocked. Moab at ease from his youth. He has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, has not known any troublesome weakening changes, but is as wine kept on the lees, and not racked or drawn off, by which it retains its strength and body. He has not been unsettled nor any way made uneasy; he has not gone into captivity, as Israel had often done, and yet Moab is a wicked, idolatrous nation, and one of the confederates against God's hidden ones (Ps. 83 : 6). There are many that persist in unrepented iniquity, and yet enjoy uninterrupted prosperity. Note, while bad people are as happy as they used to be in the world, it is no marvel if they are as bad as they used to be. They have no changes of their peace and prosperity, therefore they fear not God, their hearts and lives are unchanged (Ps. 55 : 19). H. During two centuries and a half Moab regained all, and more than all, of its former prosperity. For the land was beautiful and rich in the extreme. Its pastures were covered over with sheep and its valleys with corn. The very name "Moab" is thought to mean the land of desire—that is, the desirable land. Now, during these long periods, the description here given is applicable. They had enjoyed much ease, and the natural evils engendered by their cruel, idolatrous system had become more fixed and settled; "their scent had not changed." The truth, therefore, which is here taught is that prolonged and abundant ease, however coveted by men, is full of peril to their higher nature, and tends continually to the deterioration of character and the hardening of the habit of evil. C. There is a reference here to wine, or to the process by which it is prepared and finished. It is first expressed from the grape, when it is a thick, discolored fluid or juice. It is then fermented, passing through a process that separates the impurities, and settles them as lees at the bottom. Standing thus upon its lees or dregs in some large tun or vat, it is not further improved. A gross and coarse flavor remains, and the scent of the feculent matter stays by and becomes fastened, as it were, in the body of the wine itself. To separate this, and so to soften or refine the quality, it is now decanted or drawn off into separate jars or skins. After awhile it is done again, and then again; and so, being emptied from vessel to vessel, the last remains of the lees or sediment are finally cleared, the crude flavors are reduced, the scent itself is refined by ventilation, and the perfect character is finished. So it has not been, the prophet says, with Moab. He hath been at ease from the first, shaken by no great overturnings or defeats, humbled and broken by no captivities, ventilated by no surprising changes or adversities. He has lived on, from age to age, in comparative security, settled on his lees; and therefore he has made no improvement. What he was, he still is; his taste remains in him, and the scent of his old idolatries and barbarities of custom is not changed. Accordingly the prophet goes on to declare, in the verses that follow, that God will now deal with him in a manner better adapted to his want; that He will cause him to wander, empty his vessels, break his bottles, give him all the agitation he needs, and so will make him to be ashamed of the idolatries of Chemosh, even as Israel was made ashamed of Bethel, their confidence. There has all along been a kind of mental reference, it will be seen, in his language, to the singular contrast between Moab and Israel, which here in these last words comes out. Israel, the covenanted people, have had no such easy and quiet sort of history. They have been wanderers, in a sense, all the while; shaken loose or unsettled every few years by some great change or adversity; by a state of slavery in Egypt, by a fifty years' roving and fighting in the wilderness, by a time of dreadful anarchy under the Judges, by overthrows and judgments under the Kings, by a revolt and separation of the kingdom, then by a captivity, then by a another; and so, while Moab, heaved and loosened by no such changes, has retained the scent of its old customs and abominations, Israel has become quite another people. The calves of Bethel were long ago renounced; the low superstitions, the coarse and sensual habit, all the idolatrous fashions and affinities which corrupted their religion, have been gradually fined away. The principle that underlies the text is one that may be universalized in its applications. It is this: That we require to be unsettled in life by many changes and interruptions of adversity, in order to be most effectually loosened from our own evils, and prepared to the will and work of God. We need, in other words, to be shaken out of our places and plans, agitated, emptied from vessel to vessel, else the flavors of our grossness and impurity remain. We cannot be refined on our lees, or in any course of life that is uniformly prosperous and secure. The very scheme of life appears to be itself a grand decanting process, where change follows change, and all are emptied from vessel to vessel. Here and there a man, like Moab, stands upon his lees, and commonly with the same effect. Fire, flood, famine, sickness in all forms and guises, wait upon us, seen or unseen, and we run the gauntlet through them, calling it life. And the design appears to be to turn us hither and thither, allowing us no chance to stagnate in any sort of benefit or security. Even the most successful, who seem, in one view, to go straight on to their mark, get on after all, rather by a dexterous and continual shifting, so as to keep their balance and exactly meet the changing conditions that befall them. Nor is there anything to sentimentalize over in this ever-shifting, overturning process, which must be encountered in all the works of life; no place for sighing—vanity of vanities. There is no vanity in it, more than in the mill that winnows and separates the grain. Bushnell. Steady sunshine is ruinous. Jeremiah explains the profitlessness of Moab by saying that “Moab had been at ease from his youth, had settled upon his lees, never been emptied from vessel to vessel, never gone into captivity.” We have to be shaken out of the stupefying routine of quietness. “Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God,” wrote David. Earthly splendors eclipse the celestial, just as the sun that hangs comparatively close by so fills our eyes with near light that we know nothing, till after nightfall, of the larger suns that blaze out in the deeps of the sky. We touch things celestial and Divine when the air is not loaded with things human and earthly. The bruised flower yields the sweetest perfume, and the finest poetry of the Church has been inspired in seasons of persecution. Horace Bushnell once said: “I have learned more of experimental religion since my little boy died than in all my life before.” It was he also that wrote, “Deserts and stone-pillows prepare for an open heaven and an angel-crowded ladder.” John did not receive his revelations till he was shut up in little sea-girt Patmos. Paul’s most jubilant epistle was written in jail; as birds sometimes have their cage darkened in order to teach them to sing. We often pray that God would enable us to bear adversity; there is quite as much need of His grace to keep us from falling in seasons of prosperity. C. H. P. 12. Possessions give opportunities of service, opportunities denied to many who see the needs of others, have the will to meet them and lack the power. Is it not a righteous thing that God should deal severely with those whose circumstances give them the means and the time for doing great good, and yet who fill their lives with selfish pleasure? Such lives will come out at last in pitiable contrast with what they might have been. Note how the vessels that should have been used toward the perfection of the wine, and the bottles that should have held them, become at last useless. If we will not use our opportunities for God’s purpose, God will secure, in due time, that we should not use them for our own. Y. 13. Betrayed by their gods. This statement, as it is more especially from the religious standpoint, is a generalization of the cause of Moab’s ruin, full of spiritual insight and sagacity. It is in such directions as these we are to seek for the reasons of human success or failure; everything else is but superficial. The true causes of human success or failure, happiness or misery, are of a moral or spiritual kind. M. 14–17. The destruction is here further prophesied of very largely, and with a great copiousness and variety of expression, and in moving language, designed not only to awaken them by a national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it, but to affect us with the calamitous state of human life which is liable to such lamentable occurrences, and with the power of God’s anger and the terror of His judgments when He comes forth to contend with a provoking people. H. 15. All in vain are their boasts of might or strength for war. With exquisite beauty and force these words are said to be the words of “the King, that great King of nations, whose name is Jehovah of hosts.” The Lord of the armies of heaven, the Captain of that vast celestial host of starry worlds, may well speak with majesty of the fall of a power so small and yet so proud as Moab. (Cf. chap. 46:18; 51:57; Isa. 47:4; 48:2.) H. C. 17. Our visions are dull; our conceptions are material, and we judge from what we see with our natural eye, and we think of heaven as very far away, and of those who leave us here as gone forever from our sight. And when some illustrious servant of God lays down his battered armor, and his shield and spear, bruised and broken in the conflict, to go up to the presence of the King, and be crowned, and enter upon his kingdom, we cry out in our sorrow and tears: “How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod!” We too often fail to read God’s providence in the light of the world to come. We do not avail ourselves of the light God gives us to interpret what else is so dark and mysterious. We look to poor human reason alone, and are sadly misled in matters that are vastly above all reason and all natural light. We try to look at the outer court, and find all mysteries solved there, and forget the glory of the inner sanctuary, deluged with light and with the clear revelation of God. We weep over the present and forget the joy of the future. We place our faces in the dust of earth and cry out, “How dark this world is,” and forget to look up at the stars, where the glory of the Lord is revealed. When we cry out, How is the strong staff broken, in regard to the departure of God's servants, we forget that God has said, "I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out." We forget that the beautiful rod instead of being broken and thrown away has budded more beautifully in the House of the Lord than did that of Aaron in the Tabernacle, and is stronger and more beautiful in heaven than it could be upon the earth. Earth is but the training school of heaven. The redeemed of the Lord are on the earth prepared for their work in heaven. And as true life only dawns when the gates of immortality are thrown open, so the full service only commences when God's people pass through this gate, and look upon God, and see His kingdom in all its length and breadth and beauty and glory! Oh, not broken, but made strong is the staff, when the sweet, restful change comes! Still more beautiful and glorious is the beautiful rod, when the curtain is rolled away that separates between the holy place of this life and the Holy of Holies of the life to come. S. J. M. Eaton. 19-24. The whole plain of Moab is spread out before us, and wherever we turn our eyes, deserted towns and villages are seen. Bozrah is on the west, some twelve miles distant—an old road running toward it straight as an arrow. The town of Beth-gamul, now Um-el-Jemal, is faintly visible far away on the southwest. In the plain immediately to the south are several deserted villages. South by west, about three miles off, is the high hill Abd-el-Maaz, with a deserted town on its eastern declivity. To the southeast, the ancient road runs straight across the plain, far as the eye can see. About two hours along it, on the summit of a hill, is a deserted town, called Malah. On the segment of the plain, from south to east, I counted fourteen large villages, none of them more than twelve miles distant, and almost all of them, so far as I could see with a telescope, still habitable, like Sulkhad, but entirely deserted. Not less than thirty deserted sites can be counted from this commanding spot. Well may we exclaim, with the prophet, as we look over this scene of utter desolation, "Moab is confounded; for it is broken down; howl and cry: tell ye it in Arnon, that Moab is spoiled, and judgment is come upon the plain-country: upon Beth-gamul, and upon Beth-meon, and upon Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon all the cities of Moab far and near." J. L. Porter. 28-30. In verse 29 the accumulation of words denoting pride and arrogance is remarkable. In this connection the word in verse 30 rendered "wrath" seems to mean the outburst and overflowing of scorn. It does indeed usually mean "wrath," but its primary sense is of what overleaps due bounds, is excessive, outbreaking; and in such a connection as this should refer to his insolence. In the latter part of this verse, the words rendered "not so" mean, not sound, right—i.e., empty and vain; thus: "I know his insolence, saith the Lord, and the vanity (unsoundness) of his lying boasts ("lies"); they do all things vainly, proudly. In this rendering I change the principal pause so as to attach the word "lies" to the middle clause rather than to the last. In this construction, the passage has a pertinent and forcible significance. H. C. 29. The sin which they had been most notoriously guilty of, and for which God now reckoned with them, was pride. It is mentioned six times (verse 29). We have all heard of the pride of Moab; his neighbors took notice of it; it has testified to his face, as Israel's did, he is exceeding proud, and grows worse and worse. Observe his loftiness, his arrogance, his pride, his haughtiness; the multiplying of words to the same purport intimates in how many instances he discovered his pride, and how offensive it was both to God and man. It was charged upon them (Isa. 16:6), but here it is expressed more largely than there. Since then they had been under humbling providences, and yet were unhumbled; nay, they grew more arrogant and haughty, which plainly marked them for that utter destruction of which pride is the forerunner. H. Pride. With accumulated phrases emphasis is laid upon this leading sin of Moab, a sin which is condemned throughout Scripture as one of great wickedness. Pride is a passion rising out of an inordinate opinion of our own worthiness. It is to be distinguished from vanity. Vanity is eager for the admiration of others, though, perhaps, in its own heart conscious of possessing but little to deserve it. But pride is inwardly elated with the feeling of self-importance, and may be quite indifferent to the opinion of the world. Indeed, the height of pride is to scorn the admiration as much as the hatred of other men. It is possible, however, for a man to have a very high opinion of his own powers, importance, etc., without much pride. For pride is not a mere conviction of the great worth of one's self, it is an emotion, a passion, a disposition to dwell on one's own merits and make idols of them. Why is this so strongly condemned in Scripture? so hateful to God? Pride is the denial of guilt, the assumption that the good we receive from God is deserved; it is, therefore, a gross presumption, an evidence of base ingratitude, a proof of self-will that refuses to humble itself before the good and holy Father. Adeney. There never was a saint yet that grew proud of his fine feathers but what the Lord plucked them out by and by; there never yet was an angel that had pride in his heart but he lost his wings, and fell into Gehenna, as Satan and those fallen angels did; and there shall never be a saint who indulges self-conceit and pride and self-confidence but the Lord will spoil his glories, and trample his honors in the mire, and make him cry out yet again, "Lord, have mercy upon me!" less than the least of all saints, and the "very chief of sinners." The first Adam was for self-exaltation, and to be as gods; the second bids us to be as He was, "meek and lowly in heart." Anon. Suggestions for its cure. How entirely all our gifts are gifts! Much as we may think of ourselves on account of them, we are excelled by very many. If we have many gifts, that does but mean much and solemn responsibility. How ill it would fare with us were we to be called now to account for the use we have made of our gifts in the past! How but for the mercy of God in Christ, the most gifted is but a poor, lost sinner, cast out from the presence of God forever! C. 35. Idolatry had blighted her morals, debased her character and insulted the living God; why should not His judgments smite those who "brought offerings to her high places and burned incense to her gods?" H. C. 36. The abundance he hath gotten is perished.** Earthly treasure can only enable its possessor to surround himself with superfluous pomp, to "walk in a vain show;" it can only gratify the taste and imagination or catch the applause of the multitude; it has no power to come into contact with the soul; none to calm the perturbations of conscience, heal the corrosions of remorse or give comfort to the dying-bed; wealth cannot meet the requisitions of the heart, it cannot impart purity to the affections; it can shed no mental grace or joy, nor let in the light of hope upon eternity; it leaves the mind as exposed as ever to all the terrors of judgment and the wrath of God! But heavenly riches illuminate the understanding, pacify the conscience, and fill the heart with unutterable joy. "The good man is satisfied from himself;" he is admitted to the communion of saints and angels; he dwells in love, he dwells in God, and God in him! The wealth of this world can never, by its nanature, become truly our own. We may identify ourselves with it, and seem as if we were enlarged by our possession; but this is merely a fiction of the imagination; we must at least shrink back into our proper selves, and feel that our possessions are utterly separate from our souls. Whatever our circumstances, we are left unaltered in our moral state, our spiritual reality. But the riches of eternity are part of ourselves. R. Hall. 36-39. Here are clustered the prominent oriental tokens of a great public mourning. The prophet sympathizes, as is shown by his heart sounding or moaning like pipes. The central fact from which this expression comes is, that extreme grief violently convulses the bodily organs. Then the hair is torn out or shorn off; the flesh gashed; the coarsest cloth girded about the loins. People ascend the housetops to retire from public view, as the Orientals went there for secret prayer (Acts 10:9). They howl and wail, giving expression in this plaintive way to their grief. H. C. 38. The broken vessel was not broken by accident. A vessel broken by accident would not have furnished the proper figure. Lives that are as real serviceable vessels in the hand of God never do get broken by accident. Earthen vessels though they often be, there is a providence and a watchfulness which preserves them till their work is done. They are kept through days of persecution; they are restored from sickness; they live on into a good old age, while men apparently stronger and of greater physical resource are stricken down. And when there seems sometimes a premature and unaccountable breaking, yet it is really to be regarded in another light, namely, as a change to higher and fuller service. Only service gives value to a human life. Y. 40-42. This destroyer, "He who should come like an eagle," was primarily the king of the Chaldeans. Moab fell before the same power which desolated Judah and Jerusalem. Here we meet again, as in verse 26, with the vital truth that Moab ceased from being a nation because she had magnified herself against the living God. If all the historians who record the ultimate extinction of nations were inspired of God to give the true reasons of their fall, we should often meet this testimony, "Perished of national pride, producing contempt of God and of fundamental morality." H. C. 43,44. The frequent prosperity of the wicked is indeed a fact not at all concealed or qualified in the Scriptures. A man of the world takes his own worldly way to keep peril at a distance, and he seems to fall into no pit, no snare. Let all this be allowed. Nothing is gained by trying to make out that the wicked have no advantages. It was an old-world legend that some men sold themselves to the devil, and that his protection secured to them their wonderful immunities and prosperity. But all that is gained is in the way of postponement. Wicked men travel in a narrowing path, and at last are shut up to face the judgments of God. Y. 47. Yet will I bring again the captivity of Moab. The Moabites were afterward restored to their country, as appears from Josephus. W. Lowth.—But these and such like promises of mercy after judgment are chiefly to be understood of the conversion of the Gentiles under the Gospel, called the latter days in the prophets. (Cf. chap. 15:15, 16, 17; 49:6, 39; Isa. 18:7; 19:18, etc.; 23:18.) The conversion of idolaters is expressed by returning their captivity (Ezek. 16:53). W. Lowth. In the dearth of precise historic records, it is not easy to accommodate to each other these apparently conflicting statements; on the one hand, that "Moab shall be destroyed from being a people" (verse 42) and, on the other, that "God will bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days" (verse 47). The fact seems to be that under the Chaldean arms, shortly after Jeremiah wrote, Moab suffered severely, yet that she rallied again, and was prosperous and powerful in the age of Josephus and subsequently. But its nationality has long since utterly ceased. The same promise of bringing again the captives is made to Egypt (chap. 46:26); to the Ammonites (chap. 49:6), and to the Elamites (chap. 49:39). H. C. 49:1 Of the children of Ammon. Thus saith the LORD: Hath Israel no sons? hath he no heir? why then doth Malcam possess Gad, and his people dwell in the cities thereof? Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the children of Ammon; and it shall become a desolate heap, and her daughters shall be burned with fire: then shall Israel possess them that did possess him, saith the LORD. Howl, O Heshbon, for Ai is spoiled; cry, ye daughters of Rabbah, gird you with sackcloth: lament, and run to and fro among the fences; for Malcam shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together. Wherefore gloriest thou in the valleys, thy flowing valley, O backsliding daughter? that trusted in her treasures, saying, Who shall come unto me? Behold, I will bring a fear upon thee, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, from all that are round about thee; and ye shall be driven out every man right forth, and there shall be none to gather up him that wandereth. But afterward I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon, saith the LORD. 7. Of Edom. Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Is wisdom no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their wisdom vanished? Flee ye, turn back, dwell deep, O inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him, the time that I shall visit him. If grapegatherers came to thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? If thieves by night, would they not destroy till they had enough? But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is spoiled, and his brethren and his neighbours, and he is not. Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me. For thus saith the LORD: Behold, they to whom it pertained not to drink of the cup shall assuredly drink; and art thou he that shall altogether go unpunished? thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt surely drink. For I have sworn by myself, saith the LORD, that Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes. I have heard tidings from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, saying, Gather yourselves together, and come against her, and rise up to the battle. For, behold, I have 16 made thee small among the nations, and despised among men. As for thy terribleness, the pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldst make thy nest as high as the eagle, I 17 will bring thee down from thence, saith the LORD. And Edom shall become an astonishment: every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues 18 thereof. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, 19 saith the LORD, no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein. Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of Jordan against the strong habitation: but I will suddenly make him run away from her; and whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over her: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd that 20 will stand before me? Therefore hear ye the counsel of the LORD, that he hath taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely they shall drag them away, even the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate with them. The earth trembleth at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the 21 noise whereof is heard in the Red Sea. Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread out his wings against Bozrah: and the heart of the mighty men of Edom at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs. 23. Of Damascus. Hamath is ashamed, and Arpad; for they have heard evil tidings, they are 24 melted away: there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet. Damascus is waxed feeble, she turneth herself to flee, and trembling hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have 25 taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail. How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city 26 of my joy? Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall 27 be brought to silence in that day, saith the LORD of hosts. And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-haded. 28. Of Kedar, and of the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote. 29 Thus saith the LORD: Arise ye, go up to Kedar, and spoil the children of the east. Their tents and their flocks shall they take; they shall carry away for themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels: and they shall cry unto them, Terror on every side. 30 Flee ye, wander far off, dwell deep, O ye inhabitants of Hazor, saith the LORD; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath taken counsel against you, and hath conceived a purpose 31 against you. Arise, get you up unto a nation that is at ease, that dwelleth without care, 32 saith the LORD; which have neither gates nor bars, which dwell alone. And their camels shall be a booty, and the multitude of their cattle a spoil: and I will scatter unto all winds them that have the corners of their hair polled; and I will bring their calamity from 33 every side of them, saith the LORD. And Hazor shall be a dwelling place of jackals, a desolation for ever: no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein. 34. The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning Elam in the beginning of 35 the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Behold, I will break 36 the bow of Elam, the chief of their might. And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be 37 no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come. And I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them, even my fierce anger, saith the LORD; and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them: and I will set my throne in Elam, and will destroy from thence king and 38 princes, saith the LORD. But it shall come to pass in the latter days, that I will bring again the captivity of Elam, saith the LORD. Chap. 49. This chapter comprises five distinct prophecies—viz., of Ammon (verses 1-6); of Edom (verses 7-22); of Damascus (verses 23-27); of Kedar and Hazor (verses 28-33); and of Elam (verses 34-39). H. C. 1-6. The Ammonites were next, both in kindred and neighborhood, to the Moabites, and therefore are next set to the bar. Their country joined to that of the two tribes and a half, on the other side Jordan, and was but a bad neighbor; however, being a neighbor, they shall have a share in these circular predictions. H. 1. Ammon, like Moab, descended from Lot. His country lay north of Moab and east of that assigned to the two and a half tribes on the east of Jordan. Hence his people not unnaturally came from time to time into hostile attitude toward Israel. Malcom, rendered here "their king," is rather the proper name of their national god. Hence this first verse implies that Ammon had taken possession of the territory of Gad. Is it because Israel has no sons to inherit after him, that the god of Ammon inherits the land of Gad, and his people dwell in the cities of Gad? These two and a half tribes had probably been largely borne away into captivity by the Assyrian armies at the fall of the northern kingdom. God rebukes Ammon for too greedily seizing upon their territory. 3. Here also "Malcom" should have been transferred as the proper name of their god, and not translated as if a common noun. His name appears in the slightly different form of Milcom in 1 K. 11:5, 33, and 2 K. 23:13, as the tutelar god of Ammon. This god would have his own priests and his princes. The former could not be said of "their king." He would not have his priests. H. C. 7-22. The Edomites come next to receive their doom from God, by the mouth of Jeremiah; they also were old enemies to the Israel of God; but their day will come to be reckoned with, and it is now at hand, and is foretold, not only for warning to them, but for comfort to the Israel of God, whose afflictions were very much aggravated by their triumphs over them, and joy in their calamity (Ps. 137:7). Many of the expressions used in this prophecy concerning Edom are borrowed from the prophecy of Obadiah, which is concerning Edom; for all the prophets being inspired by one and the same Spirit, there must needs be a wonderful harmony and agreement in their predictions. H. This prophecy concerning Edom should be studied in connection with Obadiah, and with Ezek. 25:12-14 and Lam. 4:21, 22. In all these passages it is intimated that Edom is punished for his envy and cruelty toward his brethren, the posterity of Jacob. Obadiah names "his violence against his brother Jacob," his "looking on his brother in his calamity," etc. Ezekiel says, "Because Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended and revenged himself upon them," etc. Hence the judgment here predicted against Edom comes in the way of moral retribution. Several expressions found here occur also in Obadiah. "Teman" was the name of the country adjacent to Edom, and probably in its alliance. Its people had been celebrated for their wisdom. The apocryphal book of Baruch (chap. 3:22, 23) bears testimony to this general reputation. H. C. 7. The failure of wisdom. Edom, the country of Job, the haunt of ancient lore, is to find that her learning and science will prove no safeguard against the deluge of destruction that is about to burst over the nations. The disaster which fell upon ancient "wise men" of the East may be a warning to the higher intelligences of all ages. Adency. Edom, celebrated for its wisdom from of old (Obad. 8; Job 11:11), had secured itself in inaccessible fastnesses of the mountains, dwelling in rock-hewn cities. It was chiefly in international relations that the skill or subtlety of the Idumæans displayed itself. Their diplomacy was full of craft and falsehood, and could not be relied upon. Their wisdom was essentially of this world—cold, calculating and unscrupulous. Of this it is predicted by Jeremiah that it shall be brought to naught. M. 8. "Dwell deep, O inhabitants of Dedan." The prophet is foretelling the calamities that are to come on the different heathen nations who dwelt around the land of God's people, and from whom they, at various times, had received sore wrong and harm. The Edomites—the descendants of Esau—were the traditional foes of Israel, and it is they who in all probability are referred to. The country they inhabited was full of rocks, cliffs, deep gorges in the sides of which were many all but inaccessible caves. The rocky dwellings of Edom have been often told of—how they served as an almost impenetrable fortress for the robber bands which mostly inhabited them. But now vengeance was to come on these people, and the prophet is bidding them betake themselves in flight to the far-off desert, or to hide themselves in the deep recesses of their rocky caves, and there, if possible, safely dwell. C. 16. The word rendered "clefts of the rocks" means the refuges, the recesses. The descriptive points in this verse are wonderfully accurate. Petra, the ancient capital of Edom, for ages the main thoroughfare of the great trade and travel between India and Mesopotamia on the east, and Egypt and North Africa on the southwest; the seat therefore of wealth and art, perhaps of wisdom also and of culture, held a position of great military strength. It was built in a vast ravine, partly on the broad area enclosed by lofty precipitous walls of rock, which by some of nature's mighty convulsions had been rent asunder, and partly in those very fronts of lofty rock, chiselled out with immense labor, so that the pillars of its temples and the apartments of its tombs and dwellings were wholly cut from the solid eternal rock. Here—her nests built high in these crags like the eagle's—old Petra sat in her pride and her strength, cherishing the vain fancy that no power could ever bring her down. But the Almighty spake and it was done! The site of ancient Petra, for ages unknown, has been brought to light during the present century. A number of travellers have visited and explored it. Laborde, Dr. Robinson, and others have given full and precise statements of its wonderful ruins, placing Petra in the front rank of those ancient witnesses who bear their silent but resistless testimony to the precision of the old prophetic descriptions and to the marvellous correspondence in the most minute details between prophecy and history—the prophecy of twenty centuries ago and the history of to-day. H. C. Such cities as the rock-hewn Petra, and Bozrah seated on her lofty hill, would seem by natural position impregnable. Consequently their inhabitants would grow insolent and proud, and thus deserve the more that fate which their natural resources could not avert, and their self-confidence would prevent them from mitigating. Worldly resources are dangers when they lead us to forsake the true Refuge in order to trust in them. The rich and great are not the more secure for their privileges, and they will be the less safe if they lean upon them when without them they would seek help in God. Adeney. 17,18. Every word of this fearful description is fulfilled. The ancient site of Sodom and Gomorrah is scarcely more void of inhabitants this day than the site of ancient Petra. Some of her dwellings hewn from the solid rock remain, but no human beings dwell therein. They echo only to the cry of the owl and the scream of the vulture. (Isa. 34:11-15.) H. C. 18. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. A proverbial expression, denoting an utter desolation. (See chap. 50:40; Isa. 13:19.) W. Lowth.—We know little more of the history of the Edomites than as it is connected with that of the Jews; and where is the name or the nation now? They were swallowed up and lost, partly among the Nabathean Arabs, and partly among the Jews; and the very name was abolished and disused about the first century after Christ. Thus were they rewarded for insulting and oppressing their brethren the Jews, and hereby were fulfilled the prophecies of Jeremiah in this chapter; and of the other prophets enumerated in the note under verses 7-22. Bp. Newton. 19. Behold, he shall come up like a lion, etc. A description of Nebuchadnezzar, marching with his army against Idumea. W. Lowth.—Upon occasion of the inundations to which the Jordan is subject, we are told by Maundrell that several sorts of wild beasts which are wont to harbor among the trees and bushes by the river-side are forced out of their covert, and infest the neighboring plains. To this circumstance the prophet here alludes. Blayney. What leader or general can enter the lists with Me? The word "shepherd" often signifies a prince or commander. (See chap. 6:3; 25:34.) But here it is used in opposition to the "lion," mentioned before; as if he had said, A shepherd may as well encounter a lion, as the best-appointed warrior contend with God Almighty, or those whom He makes the instruments of His vengeance. 21. The earth is moved at the noise. The surrounding countries are astonished at its ruin, and the sound of it reaches even to the Red Sea, which was at a considerable distance from the land of Edom. The prophet compares the destruction of a nation to the fall of a great building. (See Ezek. 26:15; 31:16.) W. Lowth. 23-27. The kingdom of Syria lay north of Canaan, as that of Edom lay south, and thither we must now remove, and take a view of the approaching fate of that kingdom, which had been often vexatious to the Israel of God. Damascus was the metropolis of that kingdom, and the ruin of the whole is supposed in the ruin of that; yet Hamath and Arpad, two other considerable cities, are named (verse 23), and the palaces of Ben-hadad, which he built, are particularly marked for ruin (verse 27); see also Amos 1:4. Ben-hadad (the son of Hadad, either their idol or one of their ancient kings, whence the rest descended) was a common name of the kings of Syria, as Pharaoh of the kings of Egypt. H. 23. Concerning Damascus. Damascus was the capital of the kingdom of Syria, and had seemingly at this time swallowed up all the other petty sovereignties of that country. Isaiah had before uttered a prophecy concerning it of calamitous import (chap. 17), which had been fulfilled by Tiglath-pileser's taking it and carrying away the people captives to Kir (2 K. 16: 9). Amos also had foretold the same event (chap. 1: 3-5). But it had recovered itself after the fall of the Assyrian empire, and is here doomed to suffer again the like calamities from the resentment of Nebuchadnezzar, probably about the same time with the other nations. Blayney. 23-27. Hamath and Arpad (otherwise called Arvad) were cities north of Palestine, probably the chief cities of independent sovereignties. They were at that time smitten with consternation, hearing that Damascus had fallen before an invading force. They apprehended that their turn must come next. Arpad was near the Mediterranean Sea. Hence perhaps the clause, "Sorrow on the sea;" or the reading may be, "Their agitation is like that of the sea," which cannot be quiet. Some good critics favor this reading and sense. Verse 25 may be understood as the language of any one of the inhabitants of Damascus: "How is the city of my pride" (which I have praised) "and of my joy abandoned of all good!" What good has not forsaken it! What calamity has not befallen it! "Therefore" (verse 26) does not indicate here a logical inference from what precedes, but should be read "correspondingly;" accordingly, her young men fall, etc. Along with the utter fall of the city came the slaughter of her warriors. Inasmuch as the prophecy against Kedar refers to Nebuchadnezzar as the destroyer, and as the same is said also of Egypt (chap. 46: 26), it is highly probable that most if not all of these prophecies contemplate the same scourge and "hammer of the nations"—the more so from the manifest correspondence between these chaps. 46-49 and chap. 25: 15-25. H. C. 23. "There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet." We must remember that the sea to the Jew of old time was an object of almost unmixed terror. Nearly all the allusions in the Bible tell of its power and peril, never of its preciousness and value to man. The Jews were a non-seafaring people; they dreaded it. In De. 28: 68 the being taken back to Egypt in ships is held out as a great threatening. They had no seaport worth mentioning. For centuries their seaboard was held by the Philistines. All their conceptions of it relate to its hurtful and destructive power. C. 28-33. These verses foretell the desolation that Nebuchadnezzar and his forces should make among the people of Kedar (who descended from Kedar, the son of Ishmael, and inhabited a part of Arabia the Stony), and of the kingdoms, the petty principalities of Hazor, that joined to them who, perhaps, were originally Canaanites, of the kingdom of Hazor, in the north of Canaan, which had Jabin for its king, but being driven thence, settled in the deserts of Arabia, and associated themselves with the Kedarenes. H. Kedar (the dark-skinned), a son of Ishmael, gave his name to an ancient Arab tribe distinguished for wealth and power. It long held possession of the northwest district of Arabia proper, and comes frequently to view in the Scriptures—e.g., Isa. 21: 13-17; 42: 11; 60: 7; Ezek. 27: 21. Hazor, if a name for an Arab sovereignty, is less known. There was a strong city and sovereignty of that name in the north of Canaan when Joshua conquered the country, but that people were not known in that country in the time of Jeremiah. Probably this Hazor, so closely associated with Kedar, is also, an Arab tribe. The Lord commissioned Nebuchadnezzar to go and smite those children of the East. The description in verse 29 is of a nomadic race, whose wealth consisted in their tents and flocks, with a few simple utensils and also camels. The directions, "Flee, get you far off, dwell deep," were precisely adapted to their habits, describing the very things they do when attacked by a resistless foe—mount their camels, flee far off, plunge into the depths of their vast deserts, where no enemy not thus furnished with animals for the desert can follow them. In verse 31, "Arise, get you," etc., like the same words in verse 28, are addressed to the king of Babylon. These Arab sovereignties were dwelling carelessly, with no apprehensions of danger. Arabs never protect themselves with "gates and bars." Their camels and fleet horses are their only reliance for safety. Yet despite of this protection, usually ample, the Lord will bring on them a fearful desolation. The Hebrew phrase rendered "Those that are in the utmost corners," means men having the corners of their beards shorn—a designation of contempt often given to the Arabs of the desert. (See the same phrase, chaps. 9: 25 and 25: 23.) 34-39. This prophecy is dated in the beginning of Zedekiah's reign; it is probable that the other prophecies against the Gentiles going before were at the same time. The Elamites were the Persians, descended from Elam, the son of Shem (Gen. 10: 22), yet some think it was only that part of Persia which lay nearest to the Jews, which was called Elymais, and adjoined to Media-Elam, which, say they, had acted against God's Israel, bare the quiver in an expedition against them (Isa. 22: 6), and therefore must be reckoned with among the rest. It is here foretold, in general, that God will bring evil upon them, even His fierce anger, and that is evil enough, it has all evil in it (verse 37). H. Elam was an independent and even powerful kingdom in the days of Abram (Gen. 14: 1). When the monarchy of Persia was established under Cyrus, Elam was blended into and formed a part of it; but before that time they were two distinct kingdoms. According to the present prophecy, Elam is spoken of as having actually become a province of the Babylonish empire (Dan. 8: 2); and Daniel appears to have presided over it, having Shushan for the seat of his government. It therefore probably was, as the name would lead us to suppose, the country called by heathen writers Elymais, which Pliny and Strabo, in conformity with Daniel, describe as separated from Susiana by the river Eulæus, or Ulai. On the final subversion of the Babylonish monarchy, Elam was restored again, as is intimated below (verse 39), to its former possessors, who had fought under the banners of the Medes and Persians. (See Isa. 21: 2.) Blayney. Elam is sometimes confounded with Persia, and does in some cases represent Persia, but was anciently a distinct kingdom, in very ancient times one of great power, for Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, seems to have headed the powerful allied army from the East in the first war of extant history (Gen. 14: 1-12). Little is known of its subsequent history. In the Scriptures Elam appears (Gen. 10: 22) as the son of Shem; in Gen. 14, as above, a powerful kingdom of the East; in Isa. 21: 2 and 22: 6, as associated with Media in the conquest of Babylon, where the name would seem to represent Persia as a whole. In Ezra 4: 9, the Elamites are among the nations who composed the vast Medo-Persian empire; in Ezek. 32: 24 they are among the great uncircumcised nations who had been the terror of the world; in Jer. 25: 25, with the Medes and many others, they are doomed to drink the wine-cup of Divine judgment; and in Dan. 8: 2, they are a province, probably of the Persian empire. Hence it is generally supposed that Elam is identical with the Elymais of the Greek historians—a province having Media on the north, and the Persian gulf on the south, with Babylonia on the west, and Persia proper on the east, about half as large in territory as Persia. Very probably it was subjugated by Nebuchadnezzar and brought under the world-wide sway of Babylon in the height of its glory, yet it would seem to be associated with Media and Persia in the siege and conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. (See Isa. 21: 2 and 22: 6.) To that subjugation this prophecy (verses 35-38) may refer, and verse 39 to a subsequent independence. The precise date of this prophecy is given—unlike the usage in the other prophecies of this series—e.g., against Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus and Kedar. Why the precise date is given here and not in those other cases does not certainly appear. Perhaps because this was nearer the time of its fulfilment, so that only by a precise date would the reader in future time have the means of knowing that the prophecy came before the events it predicted. The bow was a prominent weapon of war among all the ancient nations, pre-eminently so with the Elamites, the chief source of their strength. To "break their bow" therefore would effectually crush their military power. Verse 36 indicates the widest and most diversified dispersion of her people. Our knowledge of ancient history is too imperfect to verify the accuracy of this prediction. H. C. 50:1 THE word that the LORD spake concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet. 2. Declare ye among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed; her images are put 3 to shame, her idols are dismayed. For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they are fled, they are 4 gone, both man and beast. In those days and in that time, saith the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; they shall go on their way weep 5 ing, and shall seek the LORD their God. They shall inquire concerning Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come ye, and join yourselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten. 6 My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have 7 forgotten their resting place. All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the 8 habitation of justice, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he-goats 9 before the flocks. For, lo, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from thence she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of an expert 10 mighty man; none shall return in vain. And Chaldea shall be a spoil: all that spoil her 11 shall be satisfied, saith the LORD. Because ye are glad, because ye rejoice, O ye that plunder mine heritage, because ye are wanton as an heifer that treadeth out the corn, and neigh as 12 strong horses; your mother shall be sore ashamed; she that bare you shall be confounded: behold, she shall be the hindermost of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. 13 Because of the wrath of the LORD it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: 14 every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues. Set yourselves in array against Babylon round about, all ye that bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no 15 arrows: for she hath sinned against the LORD. Shout against her round about; she hath submitted herself; her bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down: for it is the ven 16 geance of the LORD; take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest: for fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn every one to his people, and they shall flee every one to his own land. 17 Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria hath devoured him; and last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones. 18 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will punish the king of 19 Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria. And I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon 20 the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead. In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant. 21 Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: slay and utterly destroy after them, saith the LORD, and do according to all that I 22, 23 have commanded thee. A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken! how is Babylon become a desola 24 tion among the nations! I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the 25 LORD. The LORD hath opened his armoury, and hath brought forth the weapons of his indignation: for the Lord, the LORD of hosts, hath a work to do in the land of the Chaldeans. 26 Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses: cast her up as heaps, and 27 destroy her utterly : let nothing of her be left. Slay all her bullocks ; let them go down to 28 the slaughter : woe unto them ! for their day is come, the time of their visitation. The voice of them that flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of 29 the LORD our God, the vengeance of his temple. Call together the archers against Babylon, all them that bend the bow ; camp against her round about ; let none thereof escape : recom- pense her according to her work ; according to all that she hath done, do unto her : for she 30 hath been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel. Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets, and all her men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, 31 saith the LORD. Behold, I am against thee, O thou proud one, saith the Lord, the LORD of 32 hosts : for thy day is come, the time that I will visit thee. And the proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up : and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all that are round about him. 33 Thus saith the LORD of hosts : The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together : and all that took them captives hold them fast ; they refuse to let them 34 go. Their redeemer is strong ; the LORD of hosts is his name : he shall thoroughly plead 35 their cause, that he may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon. A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the LORD, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon 36 her princes, and upon her wise men. A sword is upon the boasters, and they shall dote : a 37 sword is upon her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed. A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her, and 38 they shall become as women : a sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed. A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up : for it is a land of graven images, 39 and they are mad upon idols. Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wolves shall dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein : and it shall be no more inhabited for ever ; 40 neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the LORD ; so shall no man dwell there, neither 41 shall any son of man sojourn therein. Behold, a people cometh from the north ; and a great 42 nation, and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. They lay hold on bow and spear ; they are cruel, and have no mercy ; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses ; every one set in array, as a man to the battle, against thee, O 43 daughter of Babylon. The king of Babylon hath heard the fame of them, and his hands wax 44 feeble : anguish hath taken hold of him, and pangs as of a woman in travail. Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of Jordan against the strong habitation : but I will suddenly make them run away from her ; and whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over her : for who is like me ? and who will appoint me a time ? and who is the shepherd that will 45 stand before me ? Therefore hear ye the counsel of the LORD, that he hath taken against Babylon ; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans : Surely they shall drag them away, even the little ones of the flock ; surely he shall make their habi- 46 tation desolate with them. At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembleth, and the cry is heard among the nations. Chap. 50. This chapter and the next contain a prophecy concerning the fall of Babylon, intermixed and contrasted with predictions concerning the redemption of Israel and Judah, who were not, like those oppressors, to be finally extirpated, but to survive them, and, upon their repentance and conversion, to be pardoned and restored. The prophecy was delivered and sent to Babylon in the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign, as appears from chap. 51 : 59. Blayney. As the catalogue of nations doomed to drink the Lord's wine cup of judgment (Jer. 25 : 15-33) enumerates substantially all the tribes and sovereignties of Western Asia and Egypt first, and Babylon after them, so this series of more expanded prophecies (chaps. 46-51) gives the most prominent of those nations first, and closes with Babylon. This series of prophecies is manifestly an expansion of that summary statement. The German critics force upon us the question of the authorship of these prophecies against Babylon (chaps. 50 and 51). . . . When the fact of Divine inspiration is accepted according to the constant and consistent tenor of these writings, and according to all the evidence that bears upon the case, and when moreover due regard is had to the special object of these chapters and the standpoint of view from which they were written, all critical difficulties vanish. Everything is as we should legitimately expect. All is rational and pertinent. 1-3. Remarkably, before Chaldea became a first-class power—before Babylon became the wonder of the world and the first city of her age—this humble prophet of Anathoth announces to the nations of the earth that she is doomed erelong to fall! Her proud city is to be captured; her idols are to be confounded and utterly broken to pieces. This is real prophecy! Such are its lofty prerogatives—indefinitely high above the utmost reach of human sagacity! Bel and Merodach are only different names for the same god—the patron god of great Babylon—the same whom Nebuchadnezzar, both in the sacred Scriptures and in profane records, continually recognizes and adores as his own god. (See Dan. 4:8; 3:14.) These heathen gods were accounted the patrons and protectors of their worshippers. Hence the fall of Babylon would be the confounding and breaking down of their god. In their view, Babylon could not fall until its god had been overpowered. This conquering power before which Babylon falls comes from the north. When the prophet wrote, this power also, even more than that of Babylon, was undeveloped. No eye save that of God could see its future greatness. 4,5. Thus early in the course of this magnificent prophecy appears this clear intimation that, coincident with the fall of Babylon, the Lord's people would earnestly seek their God, asking the way to Zion with their faces set to go thither, and most fitly proposing to join themselves to the Lord in a covenant sacred and perpetual, and never, like their former covenant, to be broken and forgotten. Dan. 9 is an interesting comment on this prophecy. We may suppose that Daniel was not alone in his spirit of humble confession and earnest supplication for Divine mercy. There were others with him who set their faces fully toward the Zion of their fathers. The author of Ps. 137 is personally unknown to us, but plainly he expressed the feelings not of one man alone, but of many of the waiting and hoping captives alongside the rivers of Babylon. The spirit of that psalm would readily culminate into the prompt and earnest passion for seeking God and His Zion which stands out in this prophecy with such life-like boldness and beauty. H. C. The value of such vows and covenants is that they render going back from God more difficult. They help to steady the will and confirm the wavering purpose. They commit us to the right side. It is a kind of breaking down the bridges behind us, a burning of the boats, so that the soldiers started on the enterprise may not be able to recross the river. Hence we urge such open and solemn avowal, consecration and covenanting with God. It tends to make your adhesion to God "perpetual," and your holy purpose to serve Him far less likely to "be forgotten." Thus was it with Israel and Judah—never since have they fallen into idolatry, and though yet "the veil is before their faces," they are far other than what they were. And in our own churches such consecration has again and again been greatly blessed. C. 7. They plead in justification, "We have done no crime, for these people have sinned against their own Lord, the hope of their fathers, the God who is the home (habitation) of justice, and who, therefore, demands justice in His people, and visits on the guilty a righteous retribution." These points made in this seventh verse are indeed very remarkable. They are admirably adapted to make a profound impression upon the exiles in respect to the cause of their national calamities and the views of their case which might well be taken by at least the more intelligent among their captors. H. C. 9. The commission and charge given to the instruments that were to be employed in destroying Babylon. The army that is to do it is called an assembly of great nations (verse 9), the Medes and Persians and all their allies and auxiliaries; it is called an assembly, because regularly formed by the Divine will and counsel to do this execution. God will raise them up to do it, will incline them to and fit them for this service, and then He will cause them to come up, for all their motions are under His conduct and direction; He shall give the word of command, shall order them to put themselves in array against Babylon (verse 14), and then they shall put themselves in array (verse 9) for what God appoints to be done shall be done; and from thence she shall be quickly taken; from their first sitting down before it they shall be still gaining ground against it till it be taken. H. 11-13. Throughout this prophecy the idea of retributive justice is made prominent. Because Babylon exulted proudly in her conquest of Judah, and because she forgot the Lord Almighty, and waxed fat and haughty against Him (e.g., Belshazzar in his wine-cups and revelry—Dan. 5:1-4), therefore the Lord will bring on her this utter and fearful desolation. In verse 12 "your mother" refers to Babylon, the mother city of the nation. Even she should lose all her prestige and glory, and be utterly put to shame. The great Chaldean power, once first among nations, shall become the last ("hindermost") and lowest of them all. H. C. 13. "Babylon shall be an astonishment" was the voice of prophecy; and Babylon has become an astonishment, is the voice of all those who have stood among its desolations and remembered its history. The majestic stream of the Euphrates wanders in silent solitude, like an aged pilgrim, through its lonely ruins. Upon its banks are the river-weeds, and the gray willows on which the captives of Israel hung their harps, and refused to be comforted while their beloved Jerusalem was not. These remain; but not one thing which the prophets declared should be destroyed, from outer wall to inner court, can now be seen in that ancient and mighty metropolis of the world. From its palaces, its arches and its terraces, broken and fallen; from this throne of the kingdom sitting in the dust; from its active life, the thronging of its busy feet, now clad in silence and buried in the grave—do we not seem to hear ascending in solemn grandeur the response, "The Lord God Almighty hath spoken it"? L. T. Townsend. 17-19. The conception of Israel as scattered and lost sheep, driven and devoured by lions, appears here again (see verses 6-8) for the sake of connecting with it the retribution due and about to fall on her destroyers. The king of Assyria first took the Ten Tribes into captivity (B.C. 722) in the reign of Hoshea, king of Israel, and of Hezekiah, of Judah. (See 2 K. 17.) Now Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon ends the ruin by crushing and cranching his bones. The Lord had already punished Assyria by the utter ruin of Nineveh (B.C. 625). He here declares that He will in like manner punish Babylon. He did so by using Cyrus at the head of the Medo-Persian armies. H. C. 20. God will pardon their iniquity; this is the root of all the rest (verse 20). In those days the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none. Not only the punishments of their iniquity shall be taken off, but the offence which it gave to God shall be forgotten, and He will be reconciled to them. Their sin shall be before Him as if it had never been, it shall be blotted out as a cloud, crossed out as a debt, shall be cast behind His back; nay, it shall be cast into the depth of the sea, shall be no longer sealed up among God's treasures, ures, nor in any danger of appearing again or rising up against them. This denotes how fully God forgives sin; He remembers it no more. H. Those whom He had spared to survive and remain He would fully and freely pardon. Thus pardoned, their sins would not appear before the face of God as demanding punishment. And as justice would no longer demand their punishment, it would demand the punishment of their oppressors. When the Lord's people become penitent and are forgiven, the moral reason for punishing them ceases; but all the greater is the reason for punishing their oppressors. The former are now the Lord's accepted flock, taken under His special protection. Will He not therefore visit retribution upon those that devour them? The subsequent context pursues this train of thought. H. C. Divine forgiveness an absolute oblivion. The attribute of completeness characterizes God's work of destruction (verses 14-16); equally does it pertain to His work of salvation (verses 19, 20). In both is manifested His righteousness in its elements of wrath and mercy. His forgiveness acts in perfect harmony with His severity. M. When God forgives a man He pardons him completely, as Christ thoroughly cured all the sick persons whom He healed in any way. There is no middle course here. Either the forgiveness is total or it is not accorded at all. This is more than the remission of penalties. Some consequences of sin must still remain, though these are no longer indications of God's anger, but converted into merciful chastisements. But the essence of forgiveness lies deeper than any manipulation of external experience. It is inward, in the relation of God to the soul. This spiritual forgiveness consists in the removal of all estrangement between God and the sinner. It is perfect reconciliation with no shadow cast upon it by old offences. Adeney. 29-32. This description, "archers" and "bowmen," applies well to the Medes and Persians. The Lord takes special pains to show that this curse on Babylon is for her pride and for her oppressive cruelty. All the nations of the world through all time ought to know and to heed this. 33, 34. "Redeemer" is here used in its original, legitimate sense—one who rescues from bondage; who buys off or recovers by force the enslaved and oppressed. In this sense the Lord of Hosts proves Himself the Redeemer of His captive people. His interposition would give rest to His own land and to His people, restored and dwelling there, while it would equally give disquiet to the people of Babylon. H. C. 34. This is their comfort in distress, that though they are weak their Redeemer is strong (verse 34—their Avenger, so the word signifies); He that has a right to them and will claim His right, and make good His claim; He is stronger than their enemies that hold them fast; He can overpower all the force that is against them, and put strength into His own people though they are very weak. The Lord of Hosts is His name, and He will answer to His name, and make it to appear that He is what His people call Him, and will be that to them for which they depend upon Him. It is the unspeakable comfort of the people of God that though they have hosts against them, they have the Lord of Hosts for them; and He shall thoroughly plead their cause; pleading He shall plead it, plead it with jealousy, plead it effectually, plead it and carry it, that He may give rest to the land, to His people's land, rest from all their enemies round about. This is applicable to all believers who complain of the dominion of sin and corruption and of their own weakness and manifold infirmities; let them know that their Redeemer is strong, He is able to keep what they commit to Him, and He will plead their cause, sin shall not have dominion over them; He will make them free, and they shall be free indeed; He will give them rest, that rest which remains for the people of God. H. The almightiness of God is our assurance of redemption. The massive strength of the rock makes it painful for us to fall upon it, and fearful and fatal for it to fall upon us; but this very characteristic renders it a blessing if we rest under its shadow, build on its foundation, or cling to it for support in the driving tempest. Men may well shrink from the might of God when they are opposed to it, and tremble and despair when it rises up, awful and irresistible, to crush them; but if they can turn to it with trust and know it is working their good, they will find in it a ground for solid assurance. How disastrous would it be for us to have a weak God, though He might have all other Divine perfections! His love might be infinite; but if He could only pity, and not effectually save us, His grace would be of little use. But our Redeemer is the Lord of hosts. If a host encamp against us, the Lord of Hosts is on our side. Adeney. 40. A desolation like that of Sodom and Gomorrah is the extreme of ruin, beyond which all figures and comparisons fail us. 43. The account of Belshazzar (Dan. 5) and the records of profane history conspire to fulfil every word of this prophecy. Belshazzar was in dismay and anguish; his night of revelry became his night of doom. 46. The fall of Babylon shook the whole earth; the cry of it went forth among all the nations. No nation could be unaffected by this event. She was the great central power in the whole eastern world. Hence, the shock of her fall was felt in every land like the shock of an earthquake. H. C. 51:1 THUS saith the LORD: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in Leb-kamai, a destroying wind. And I will send unto Babylon strangers, that shall fan her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about. Let not the archer bend his bow, and let him not lift himself up in his coat of mail: and spare ye not her young men; destroy ye utterly all her host. And they shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets. For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, of his God, of the LORD of hosts; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; be not cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of the LORD's vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence. Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the 8 nations are mad. Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed : howl for her ; take balm for 9 her pain, if so be she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed : 10 forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country : for her judgement reacheth unto 10 heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. The LORD hath brought forth our righteousness : 11 come, and let us declare in Zion the work of the LORD our God. Make sharp the arrows ; 12 hold firm the shields : the LORD hath stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes ; because 13 his device is against Babylon, to destroy it : for it is the vengeance of the LORD, the ven- 14 geance of his temple. Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch 15 strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes : for the LORD hath both devised and done 13 that which he spake concerning the inhabitants of Babylon. O thou that dwellest upon 14 many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, the measure of thy covetousness. 14 The LORD of hosts hath sworn by himself, saying, Surely I will fill thee with men, as with 15 the cankerworm ; and they shall lift up a shout against thee. 15 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and by 16 his understanding hath he stretched out the heavens : when he uttereth his voice, there is a 17 tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the 18 earth ; he maketh lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasuries. 19 Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge ; every goldsmith is put to shame 20 by his graven image : for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. 21 They are vanity, a work of delusion : in the time of their visitation they shall perish. 22 The portion of Jacob is not like these ; for he is the former of all things ; and Israel is the 23 tribe of his inheritance : the LORD of hosts is his name. 24 Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war : and with thee will I break in pieces the 25 nations ; and with thee will I destroy kingdoms ; and with thee will I break in pieces the 26 horse and his rider ; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and him that rideth therein ; 27 and with thee will I break in pieces man and woman ; and with thee will I break in pieces 28 the old man and the youth ; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the 29 maid ; and with thee will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock ; and with thee will I 30 break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen ; and with thee will I break in pieces 31 governors and deputies. And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chal- 32 dea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD. 33 Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the 34 earth : and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and 35 will make thee a burnt mountain. And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a 36 stone for foundations ; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD. Set ye up a 37 standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, 38 call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz : appoint a marshal 39 against her ; cause the horses to come up as the rough cankerworm. Prepare against her the 40 nations, the kings of the Medes, the governors thereof, and all the deputies thereof, and all 41 the land of his dominion. And the land trembleth and is in pain : for the purposes of the 42 LORD against Babylon do stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabit- 43 ant. The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their strong holds ; 44 their might hath failed ; they are become as women : her dwelling places are set on fire ; her 45 bars are broken. One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to 46 shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter : and the passages are sur- 47 prised, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted. 48 For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel : The daughter of Babylon is like a 49 threshing-floor at the time when it is trodden ; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall 50 come for her. Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, 51 he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his 52 maw with my delicates ; he hath cast me out. The violence done to me and to my flesh be 53 upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say ; and, My blood be upon the inhabitants of 54 Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say. Therefore thus saith the LORD : Behold, I will plead thy cause, 55 and take vengeance for thee ; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. And 56 Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and an hissing, 57 without inhabitant. They shall roar together like young lions ; they shall growl as lions' 58 whelps. When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that 40 they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD. I will bring 41 them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he-goats. How is Sheshach taken! and the praise of the whole earth surprised! how is Babylon become a desolation among the 42 nations! The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves 43 thereof. Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land wherein no man 44 dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby. And I will do judgement upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall. 45 My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and save yourselves every man from the fierce 46 anger of the LORD. And let not your heart faint, neither fear ye for the rumour that shall be heard in the land; for a rumour shall come one year, and after that in another year shall 47 come a rumour, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgement upon the graven images of Babylon, and her whole land shall 48 be ashamed; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the spoilers shall come unto her 49 from the north, saith the LORD. As Babylon hath caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at 50 Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land. Ye that have escaped the sword, go ye, stand not 51 still; remember the LORD from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind. We are ashamed, because we have heard reproach; confusion hath covered our faces: for strangers 52 are come into the sanctuaries of the LORD's house. Wherefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will do judgement upon her graven images; and through all her land the 53 wounded shall groan. Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the LORD. 54 The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! 55 for the LORD spoileth Babylon, and destroyeth out of her the great voice; and their waves 56 roar like many waters, the noise of their voice is uttered: for the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces: for the 57 LORD is a God of recompences, he shall surely requite. And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep 58 a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts. Thus saith the LORD of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labour for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary. 59 The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of 60 his reign. Now Seraiah was chief chamberlain. And Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon. 61 And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, then see that thou read all 62 these words, and say, O LORD, thou hast spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none 63 shall dwell therein, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and 64 cast it into the midst of Euphrates: and thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah. Chap. 51. Verses 1-4 are the very words of the Lord. Verses 5-13 are the words of the prophet. H. C. 5. "Suffering, but not forsaken." Israel is not forsaken because she is driven from her home. Babylon is not more favored because she flourishes for a season as a "golden cup in the Lord's hand." For the land of the Chaldeans is filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel. Thus the truth is quite contrary to appearances. When God chastises His people He must not be thought to have forsaken them. The chastisement is for their own good. It is, therefore, a proof that God has not neglected them. Instead of being an indication of hatred or indifference, chastisement is a sign of God's love. Moreover, when His people suffer God is peculiarly near to them, and often nearest in those dark hours when bitterness of soul prevents us from having any comforting hope in Him. Adeney. Outward prosperity is not essential to signify God's satisfaction with us. Nor must we infer that, because a backsliding Christian has fallen into trouble and misery, therefore God has forsaken him. The signs of man forsaking God are made very clear, so that there may be all possible incentives to repentance; but if God ever does forsake a man, leaving him utterly to his own folly and recklessness, no sign of it is given to us. There is quite enough already in our own wild fancies to make us desponding and despairing. Y. 10. The prophet speaks in the name of the Jews. "The Lord hath brought forth our righteousness" in the sense of pleading and avenging our cause and testifying His displeasure against our enemies and captors. Come and let us praise Him in our holy Temple and city, and speak of His deliverances there. 12,13. This ruin of Babylon is God's retribution for her sins, especially against His Temple. Verse 12 intimates that ambushes would be among the agencies of this victory, in which the prophecy and the history are at one. Cyrus took the city by a species of grand ambushment, turning the river elsewhere and marching his army into the city through its dry channel. Verse 13 addresses Babylon as "dwelling upon many waters," with reference to her position on the great Euphrates, out of which she took large supplies of water for irrigation by canals, and thus literally "sat upon many waters." "The measure of her covetousness had come" in the sense that God now set a limit to her greed and grasp after unrighteous gain, shown in the exaction of unpaid labor from her hosts of captives. H. C. 19. Jehovah being the portion of Jacob, it is equally true that Jehovah's portion is His people (De. 32:9). God will be our inheritance just in proportion as we are God's inheritance. We cannot get satisfaction out of God unless He is getting satisfaction out of us. Our faith, our obedience, our devotion, are the conditions of His peculiar and richest bounty. Y. 24. The idea of retribution on Babylon for the evil they had brought on Zion before the very eyes of His people stands out prominently in verse 24, and really underlies the whole passage (verses 20-24). 26. That from her vast structures not a stone should be taken for the building of other cities is a very extraordinary prophecy, since it quite reverses the common law. In fact, large building stones were never there. Her immense structures were built of brick, either sun-dried or kiln-burned. Hence the great mass of these materials lie to this day more or less decomposed in the mountains of rubbish which mark the site of that once magnificent city. But how came a prophet in Palestine to know that of the great structures of Babylon, most of them as yet unbuilt, men should take away no corner or foundation-stone when they should lie in ruins? How else can such minute and improbable, yet truthful predictions be accounted for except as inspired of God? H. C. 30. Looking at events on their human side, it is quite true to say that Abraham founded the Hebrew race, and that David founded the Jewish monarchy, and Judas rescued his country from destruction. But it is of supreme importance, if we would see God in history, and in the history of our own times in particular, to recognize in the sages, and heroes, and reformers, and also in the philosophers, and discoverers, and inventors, whose several labors have changed the aspect of the world at particular epochs, God's special instruments sent for that very thing; and to recognize in the changes brought about, not merely the action of those instruments, but the results of the will of God. As long as God is pleased to preserve a nation in greatness and power, He continues to raise up among them warriors, divines, men of genius and statesmen. When the set time of decadence is come, there arise no great men among them; their mighty men become as women (Jer. 51:30), and counsel perishes from the wise (ibid. 18:18). In applying these truths to our own Church and country it behooves us to remember that we owe all our own national prosperity, both in spiritual and temporal things, to the undeserved mercy of God; that the continuance of that prosperity depends upon the continuance of His favor; and that the only way by which to preserve that favor is to walk in righteousness and godliness. Unless God wills to maintain our power and greatness among the nations, all the courage and policy in the world will not suffice to do so; and even courage and policy may cease to grow among us. Bp. Hervey. 31,32. The word rendered "post" means a courier, a runner. It need not surprise us that in this vast city, whose outer wall, according to Herodotus, was sixty miles in circumference, one end might be taken by the enemy some time before the other end would hear the tidings. These runners report to the king that the gates opening from the city to the river which ran through its centre are seized by the enemy; that the reeds (palisades) with which the banks were fortified to prevent an enemy from gaining access to the city through the river-bed were burned with fire, and that the Chaldean soldiers were panic-smitten. No history could describe the progressive steps of this assault and capture with more precision than this prophecy written by Jeremiah before these vast walls of Babylon were even built. For all reliable history testifies that Nebuchadnezzar was the great builder of Babylon; that nearly all of its vast structures, including the city walls and the defences along the river bank, were either built or rebuilt by him. Yet the prophet saw things that were not as though they were, and so put on record this wonderfully minute account of their capture and ruin. H. C. 32. That the passages are surprised. These were most probably the entrances into the city from the river side, which were secured by gates, that ought, as Herodotus observes, to have been fast barred; which, if it had been done, would have effectually frustrated the attempt of the enemy; but, being left open and unguarded on account of the public festivity, the assailants were in possession of those entrances, and in the heart of the city before the besieged were aware of it. Blayney. And the reeds they have burned with fire. The soldiers, seeing the Euphrates nearly dry, set fire to the reeds which covered its borders in order to facilitate the approach of the troops to the walls. The messengers reported to the king this circumstance for the purpose of signifying to him that all the waters round about Babylon were dried up, and that there was no longer anything to shelter the city from the enemy. These reeds are said to have been very large and high, and, together with the mud on which they stood, to have formed as it were another wall round the city. Poole. 33-35. The figures of the threshing-floor and of the harvest are common in the Hebrew poets to indicate the destruction of cities and the slaughter of their people. (Isa. 21:10; 17:5; Amos 1:3; Micah 4:13; Joel 3:13; Rev. 14:15, 18.) The ancient threshing instrument was a heavy roller, ridged with iron, drawn by animals, and made to crush both the straw and the grain with great force. Hence it vividly represented the instruments of Jehovah's vengeance on guilty nations. In verses 34 and 35, Judah and Jerusalem speak, recognizing the fall of Babylon as God's righteous retribution for her violence against the holy city and people. This is one of the most prominent thoughts in this entire prophecy against Babylon, the object being to assure the exiles that the Lord remembered and would yet avenge them; would break down Babylon and release them to return to their own land. H. C. 34. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, hath devoured me. A pathetic description of the calamities brought upon the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar and his forces, who, after they had devoured the wealth and laid waste the beauty of their country, then turned them out of it, and led them captives into a strange land. W. Lowth. 36. I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry. (See Isa. 14:23 and verse 31 of this chapter.) By the means there described, Babylon was taken, as here foretold. The city would have been otherwise impregnable, as it was supplied with provisions for many years, saith Herodotus; for more than twenty years, according to Xenophon; for, as Herodotus saith, if the Babylonians had but known what the Persians were doing, by shutting the gates which opened upon the river, and by standing upon the walls which were built as banks, they might have taken and destroyed the Persians as in a net or cage. Bp. Newton. 37. The foundations of Babylon were to fall, her lofty and broad walls were to be thrown down (Jer. 50:15), and she was not to present the appearance of a ruined city at all, but simply to "become heaps." It is the constant remark of travellers that what are called the ruins of Babylon are simply a succession of unsightly mounds, some smaller, some larger—"shapeless heaps of rubbish," "immense tumuli," elevations that might easily be mistaken for natural hills, and that only after careful examination convince the beholder that they are human constructions. The complete disappearance of the walls is particularly noticed; and the visitor, who has alone attempted to conjecture the position which they occupied, can mark no more than some half-dozen mounds along the line which he ventures to assign to them. Only a single fragment of a building still erects itself above the mass of rubbish whereof the mounds are chiefly composed, to show that human habitations really once stood where all is now ruin, decay and desolation. When Babylon was standing in all its glory, with its great rampart walls from two hundred to three hundred feet high, with its lofty palaces and temple-towers, with its "hanging gardens," reckoned one of the world's wonders, and even its ordinary houses from three to four stories high, it was a bold prophecy that the whole would one day disappear—that the edifices would all crumble into ruin, and the decomposed material cover up and conceal the massive towers and walls, presenting nothing to the eye but rounded hillocks, huge unsightly "heaps." It may be that such a fate had already befallen the great cities of Assyria, which had been destroyed nearly a century earlier, and which, from the nature of their materials, must have gone rapidly to decay. But the lessons of the past do not readily impress themselves on men; and it must have required a deep conviction of God's absolute foreknowledge on the part of the Hebrew prophets to publish it abroad, on the strength of a spiritual communication, that such a fate would overtake the greatest city of their day—"the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency" (Isa. 13:19). G. R. 42-44. The vast plains around Babylon were flooded by the Euphrates in its great freshets, presenting the appearance of an inland sea. (Cf. verses 13, 36.) To regulate these inundations, Nebuchadnezzar, with immense labor, constructed a vast reservoir, an inland lake, and then cut canals from this lake to irrigate the country when water was needed. But when the huge brick structures of Babylon became heaps of ruins, these canals and even the river itself were blocked up, and the whole plain was flooded during large portions of the year. Consequently, it passed from a state of most luxuriant fertility to one of utter barrenness, a vast quagmire, a continent of mud, marsh, bog, miasm, desolation! Thus was this wonderfully minute, and to human view improbable prophecy, literally fulfilled. Bel, the chief and patron god of Babylon, is thought of as having taken into his stomach the vast amount of treasures brought into his temple; but in righteous judgment, the great God compels him to disgorge it! The nations shall no more "flow together," making their long pilgrimages with votive offerings to his shrine. The word rendered "flow together," is the same which represents the confluence of the nations to Jehovah's Temple "in the latter days" (e.g., Isa. 2:2; Micah 4:1; Jer. 31:12). That the walls of Babylon should fall was a great event, which such a prophecy could not omit. Herodotus, an eye-witness, describes this double wall, an outer and an inner; the outer, three hundred and thirty-seven and a half feet high, eighty-five feet thick, with one hundred gates of brass. It was the wonder of the age—indeed, of the world. Yet under the mighty hand of God, how easily it was made to fall! H. C. 43. Not only the site of Babylon herself, but the whole plain of Babylonia, covered with the shapeless heaps under which the great Chaldean cities lie hidden, bears a perpetual witness to the truth of the prophecy, every word of which is a historic description: "Her cities are a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby." "Besides the great mound," says the most distinguished investigator of the site, "other shapeless heaps of rubbish cover for many an acre the face of the land. The lofty banks of ancient canals fret the country, like natural ridges of hills. Some have been long choked with sand; others still carry the waters of the river to distant villages and palm-groves. On all sides fragments of glass, marble, pottery and inscribed brick are mingled with that peculiar nitrous and blanched soil which, bred from the remains of ancient habitations, checks or destroys vegetation, and renders the site of Babylon a naked and hideous waste. Owls start from the scanty thickets, and the foul jackal skulks through the furrows" (Layard). P. S. 51. This is what the exiles are supposed to say when exhorted to think of their own Jerusalem. "It is sad" (say they) "to think of her; we remember how the heathen reproached us, and how they laid unclean hands upon the most holy things of the house of our God." 54-56. Among numerous other indications of the ruin of Babylon, we have here the fearful outcry of terror at her fall, coupled also with the crash and the roar when her lofty towers and walls are seen in vision to fall to the ground. In the last clause of verse 55, "Her waves that roar like great waters," are probably her enemies rushing upon her with the shout of victory, and in point of the ruin they bring, resembling a mighty inundation. The next clauses show that the mind of the writer is on the invading hosts of spoilers. 58. This closing verse of this elaborate prophetic description sums up the most vital facts. The broad walls of Babylon, though eighty-five feet broad, and built apparently for immortality, shall be utterly broken. The original implies that their foundations shall be laid naked, the very ground on which they stood being made bare. Her hundred lofty gates shall be burned with fire. The armies of captives whose labor she employed for years in their erection will appear to have spent their strength and toil in vain, working and building only for the fire to destroy. And they shall be utterly exhausted, past all power to recuperate their strength. This is the sense of "being weary." Hab. 2 : 13 treats of the same subject, and was perhaps in the mind of Jeremiah. The reader who shall carefully group together all the minute and special points of this prophecy will find himself already possessed with the great facts of that wonderful history. Let him note that Babylon is here a great city of vast extent ; of lofty and broad walls ; of a large foreign population, who scattered and fled each to his own country ; that her kings and princes were revelling in a drunken debauch on that fatal night ; that her armies were panic-smitten and forbore to fight ; that tidings first came to the king that his city was taken at one end ; that "the passages" from the city to the river were seized by the enemy, and the palisades that fortified those points were burned ; that her broad walls were levelled to the ground ; that a fearful ruin ultimately swept over her, and left nothing but emptiness and desolation ; that the sea covered her ; and, in another line of facts, that her destroyers came from the north ; that the Medes were prominent among them ; that there were many other great nations combined with them in this final conflict ; that they were armed with the bow, etc.—these are a portion of the definite points made in this prophecy, all which are definitely confirmed by historians who never read Jeremiah, and who, if they had, could have no interest in making out a fulfilment of his prophecies. Yet when Jeremiah wrote, the Babylon of the great Chaldean dynasty was yet in great measure to be made. Its immensely broad and lofty walls were yet to be built. Cyrus was yet unborn. The great Median power was scarcely known. The Divine providences which brought up those northern kingdoms, developed their strength and effected their combination, were yet to be unfolded. What mortal eye could pierce into that darkness of yet unmade history ? What human line could fathom those depths of the distant future ? Verily this cometh only of the wisdom of Him who "calleth the things that are not as though they were," and who can read to mortals their yet unmade history, because it is His province to shape the making of all human history. H. C. Of its splendor under Nebuchadnezzar there can be no doubt. Pliny says, "It was the greatest city the sun ever shone upon." Isaiah called it the "Golden City." Its walls, three hundred feet in height, according to one of its historians, and seventy-five feet in breadth, appeared more like the bulwarks of nature than the workmanship of man. They were regarded by Strabo as one of the seven wonders of the world. The entire area within its massive walls, according to Herodotus and Ctesias, its chief historians, was two hundred square miles. Its temples, its palaces, its fortresses, its brazen gates, its enamelled brick, its plated pillars, its huge embankments along the shores of the Euphrates, its artificial mountains as high as the dome of St. Peter's, its ornamental architecture, its artificial lakes, and its lofty palaces, with its hanging gardens piled in successive terraces to the top of its walls, displayed more of the mighty works of mortals than have ever elsewhere been concentrated in one spot on the earth. Such was Babylon. And yet, while the city was in its glory, while royal power defended it, one hundred and sixty years before the foot of an enemy had entered its gates or menaced its walls, the prophets of God declared that the spearmen and the horsemen from the north should deluge the city in blood, and that the Almighty Himself should sweep it with the bosom of destruction. L. T. Townsend. 59-64. This passage stands here as a sequel to the prophecy against Babylon comprised in chaps. 50 and 51 : 1-58, showing especially that the prophet, having written it, committed it to Seraiah to carry to Babylon—he being one of the attendants of King Zedekiah in his journey to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Seraiah was directed, on arriving at Babylon, to read this prophecy ; then to repeat certain words here recited ; and, finally, to bind a stone to this roll and sink it in the Euphrates, saying, "Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil which I will bring upon her ; and they shall be weary"—i.e., exhausted so as never to regain their national vigor and vitality. This Seraiah was not the one who bears this name in chap. 36 : 26, nor the other who bears this name in chap. 40 : 8, as is shown by the name of his father, Neriah. But he was a brother of Baruch, and therefore of a family who were warm and fast friends of the prophet. Seraiah manifestly held a place of responsible trust under Zedekiah. H. C. 63. This was a significative emblem of Babylon's sinking irrecoverably under the judgments here denounced against her. (Cf. Rev. 18 : 21.) This threatening was, in a literal sense, fulfilled. W. Lowth.—This stone lost in one sense was not lost in another. Nay, it was serving a higher purpose than any it could have served simply as a stone. It became a teacher, and it is a teacher still, warning all ambitious men and all neglecters of the commandments and predictions of Jehovah. Y. 64. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah. This is probably mentioned to show that the next chapter was added by Ezra, or Baruch, or whoever collected this prophecy into one volume. W. Lowth. 1. Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign ; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem : and his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. For through the anger of the LORD did it come to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence : and Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it ; and they built forts against it round about. So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine 25 : 1 belled against the king of Babylon. And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about. So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden: (now the Chaldeans were against the city round about:) and the king went by the way of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army was scattered from him. Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgement upon him. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon. (Verses 27-30 like Jeremiah 52 : 31-34.) 12. Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, which stood before the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem: and he burned the house of the LORD, and the king's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned he with fire. And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about. Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest sort of the people, and the residue of the people that were left in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude. But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen. And the pillars of brass that were in the house of the LORD, and the bases and the brasen sea that were in the house of the LORD, did the Chaldeans break in pieces, and carried all the brass of them to Babylon. The pots also, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the basons, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass wherewith they ministered, took they away. And the cups, and the firepans, and the basons, and the pots, and the candlesticks, and the spoons, Solomon had made for the house of the LORD; the brass of all these vessels was 17 without weight. The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and a chapiter of brass was upon it: and the height of the chapiter was three cubits; with network and pomegranates upon the chapiter round about, all of brass: and like unto these had 18 the second pillar with network. And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and 19 the three keepers of the door: and out of the city he took an officer that was set over the men of war; and five men of them that saw the king's face, which were found in the city; and the scribe, the captain of the host, which mustered the people of the land; and threescore men of the people of 20 the land, that were found in the city. And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah. And the king of Babylon smote them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land.