1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, How is she become tributary! 2. She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her, They are become her enemies. 3. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: All her persecutors overtook her within the straits. 4. The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness. 5. Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; For the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary. 6. And from the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed: Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, And they are gone without strength before the pursuer. 7. Jerusalem remembereth in the days of her affliction and of her miseries All her pleasant things that were from the days of old: When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her, The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations. 8. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing: All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. 9. Her filthiness was in her skirts; she remembered not her latter end; Therefore is she come down wonderfully; she hath no comforter: Behold, O LORD, my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself. 10. The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: For she hath seen that the heathen are entered into her sanctuary, Concerning whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation. 11. All her people sigh, they seek bread; They have given their pleasant things for meat to refresh the soul: See, O LORD, and behold; for I am become vile. 12. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, Wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. 13. From on high hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevalleth against them: He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back; He hath made me desolate and faint all the day. 14. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand; They are knit together, they are come up upon my neck; he hath made my strength to fail: The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand. 15. The Lord hath set at nought all my mighty men in the midst of me: He hath called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men: The Lord hath trodden-as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah. 16. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water; Because the comforter that should refresh my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, because the enemy hath prevailed. 17. Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort her; The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that they that are round about him should be his adversaries: Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing. 18. The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow: My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. 19. I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, While they sought them meat to refresh their souls. 20. Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress; my bowels are troubled; Mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. 21. They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me; All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast proclaimed, and they shall be like unto me. 22. Let all their wickedness come before thee: And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint. THIS book, like the several books of the Pentateuch, is denominated in Hebrew Eicah (How?) from its first word, and sometimes Kinnoth (Lamentations), from its subject. It is one of the books of the Megilloth or Roll among the Jews; and because it relates to the ruin of their affairs, and contains promises of restoration, it is peculiarly prized, and frequently read. The five Megilloth are—Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, Ruth and Esther. The whole current of antiquity and modern times have pointed out Jeremiah as the writer; of this the style is a sufficient evidence. A. C. Jerusalem, after the fall and ruin of the city at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans, long predicted by Jeremiah, is the general subject of all the five elegies; of the three (first, second and fourth), in which considerable points of likeness occur: the first dwells on the sad, ruined city, Zion. The second sings of the fons et origo of the woe of Zion—Jehovah, who at last has carried out the awful threats of punishment on a wicked people. The theme of the fourth depicts the sufferings of the various classes of the people at the hands of their conquerors. The third of these elegies again is distinguished by the alphabetical structure of the poetry. It is even more artificial in its arrangement than the first, second and fourth. It too dwells on the sorrow of the people, but it is more personal. The writer in this poem speaks of himself as "the man that has seen the affliction." Spence. Among all Orientals, poetry and music lend their aid to the expression of grief. The Hebrews give a liberal space in their literature to elegiac song in the form of plaintive elegies in commemoration of the virtues of the dead, and in sad recollection of great calamities. The reader will at once recall the elegies of David upon the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. 1: 17-27); of Abner (2 Sam. 3: 33, 34), and of Absalom (2 Sam. 18: 33). Jeremiah prepared a similar elegy on the death of Josiah (2 Chron. 35: 25, 26). In the same strain, though more extended, are these "lamentations" over the fall of Jerusalem, the defeat of her armies, the murder of her priests and princes, the fearful slaughter of her young men and maidens, and the utter desolation of her holy Temple. The third chapter is chiefly occupied with the prophet's own personal trials and sorrows. The whole is in Hebrew poetry. The first four chapters are acrostic. In chaps. 1, 2 and 4 the successive verses begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, twenty two in number; while chap. 3 is composed in triplets of verses, each verse in the first triplet beginning with the first letter of the alphabet, and each verse of the second with the second letter, etc. This artificial arrangement would aid the memory, and may have been also a matter of literary taste. In their moral tone, these "lamentations" naturally partake somewhat deeply of the general character of such compositions among the Jews of that age. They are thoroughly elegiac. It follows almost or quite of necessity, that they contemplate the great subjects of public grief as seen upon their human side, and not merely as they would appear when considered in the light of a moral discipline sent of God, or in the light of that fearful apostasy from God which called for a retribution so signal as this. Yet coming from the hand of such a prophet as Jeremiah, we might naturally expect occasional allusions to the moral causes of these calamities—some recognitions of the anger of a just God, and some confessions of national sin. Such, in fact, we find. There is nothing in this Book of Lamentations to militate against its inspiration. It had a noble moral purpose. It availed itself most wisely of a current usage in regard to public lamentations in order to give direction to the feeling of public grief, and so to turn to good account the chastened sensibility of a deeply stricken people. The subject precludes all special messages from the Lord, whether of a prophetic or hortatory character. It would be out of place to look for them here. The phrase so oft recurring in the other book of Jeremiah, "Thus saith the Lord of hosts," does not occur in all this book. The only passage that seems in any wise prophetic is chap. 4:21, 22, which gives an outlook upon the future doom of Edom and the termination of calamity on Zion. The third chapter differs widely in its general scope from all the others. It is thoroughly personal to the prophet, giving his own experiences, and not those of the people. There was good reason for his reciting thus his own personal trials and griefs. It was adapted to secure for him the sympathy of at least the more considerate among the people, and would help them to appreciate his character and his work. We have reason to be thankful for this chapter. All the other chapters were prepared for the use of the people, and were designed to represent their actual feelings of grief and sorrow, as also to lead them on to a proper recognition of the hand of the Lord, and into a spirit of due confession of sin and prayer for pardon. It is clear that this elegy was written after the fall of the city and the destruction of the Temple. But whether written specially for the exiles in Chaldea, or specially for those in Egypt, or for both indiscriminately, the book affords no decisive data to show. Yet inasmuch as the remnant that went into Egypt were mostly cut off by the judgments of God, while those who went to Chaldea multiplied and ultimately furnished the returning pilgrims who replanted Judea and rebuilt Jerusalem, it cannot well be doubted that this book was sent to them, and by them preserved with the other sacred books. Jeremiah understood very well that the hope of the future Zion lay in that party and not in the Egyptian, and hence would have a special reason for whatever effort he could make for their moral culture. H. C. # The Legal or Forensic Element in the Book. Are there evidences of a consciousness of this element as a present and operative influence? Let us look at the first chapter, by way of seeking for a reply to this question. In the fourth verse we find the prophet lamenting on behalf of Zion that none come to her solemn feasts, but that her ways mourn. Now this word rendered solemn feast is the one used in Exodus and elsewhere of the appointed feasts of the Lord; it is that after which the tabernacle of the congregation, or tent of meeting, was named. It is clear, therefore, that the prophet refers to some such kind of gathering as is contemplated and provided for in the Law. At the time of the Captivity, when he wrote, the observance of these feasts, which had been a custom of old, had ceased. But besides this he refers to the principle of centralization by which they are characterized, and implies that they were held in Zion, and that the people went up to Zion to keep them. Now there must have been some reason for this custom, to the observance of which his language is a witness. But we know that this principle of centralization was a main feature of the legal system, so much so that on the establishment of the second kingdom, Jeroboam made a point of imitating it. Again, the prophet speaks also, in verses 4, 7 and 19, of her priests, and her sabbaths, and her elders, and alludes in verse 8 to legal separation on account of uncleanness; so that, in addition to a recognized priesthood and company of elders, we have two main features of the law implied in the remarkably characteristic institution of the Sabbath and in the stringent provisions for ceremonial uncleanness found in it. In the tenth verse we have express reference to the regulations of De. 23, and a clear proof that the prophet regarded these regulations as divine. This is the more remarkable because they are only found in the fifth book of the law. We may just notice the mention of the Nazarites in 4:7, implying the law in Num. 6, but otherwise it is not necessary to pursue this examination further. Any one can do so for himself. This first chapter is taken only as a specimen of a book of the Captivity period, such as the Lamentations are. It affords undeniable testimony to the national condition of that period, and to what it must have been for many generations previously. Leathes. Chap. 1:1, 2. The contrasts of adversity. The key-note of this strain of sorrow, this poetical and pathetic dirge, is struck in the opening words of the composition. The heart of the prophet laments over the captured and ruined city. How natural that the present should recall the past! Jerusalem, now in the hands of the Chaldeans, was once, in the days of David and of Solomon, the scene of glory and the seat of empire, the joy of the whole earth. So much the sadder is the contrast, the deeper the fall, the bitterer the cup of woe. T. 2. In her distress Jerusalem looks for comfort to those neighboring nations which flattered her during her prosperity and behaved then as "lovers;" but she is disappointed in finding that they all desert her in the hour of her need. Jerusalem had her "lovers." This fact throws a significant light on the statement that she had "become as a widow" (verse 1). What shame that she, the wife of the Eternal, should have to be spoken to of "lovers"! But having them, she must find her comfort in them. She dare not look to her husband for comfort. In plainer language, the Jews had adopted the idolatry of neighboring nations as well as renounced the exclusive and retiring position which had been required of them by their God. It was fitting that they should find their consolation from the Babylonian invasion in these foreign connections and religions. If we let our business, our pleasure, our ambition, or any other earthly thing usurp the place of God in our hearts, the time will come when we shall have to try what help we can get in trouble from our idol. Adeney. Nights of weeping explained. The metaphor is kept up with which this first song of lamentation begins. The sensitiveness of the woman-nature helps to bring out the prostration of Jerusalem. It is not only that her condition is lamentable, but she herself is a prey to the keenest anguish. People do not always see their own sad state as others see it. There is either a shallowness of nature or something has happened to deaden the sensibilities. But in this verse we have both the mention of tears and of most sufficient causes for tears. Y. 4. The abandoned feasts. Jerusalem was the religious centre of the nation. Thither the tribes came up to present themselves before the Lord. Great assemblies and joyous feasts were held there for the benefit of all the Jews. But after the Babylonian destruction all this was suspended. None now came to the solemn feasts. The high-roads which were wont to be thronged with pilgrims mourn for the lack of travellers; the gates through which they used to press are unused; priests sigh with weariness and distress, having no glad offerings to present; and the virgins who led the song and dance in honor of God are smitten with affliction. Adeney. Zion forsaken as a religious centre. The ways of Zion mourned now, but the very fact that such a thing should be said showed that they had once been filled with rejoicing. The gates had been crowded with worshippers from every district of the land. Zion was glorified as the site of the Temple, and the Temple was glorified as holding within its imposing walls the ark of the covenant. Zion was the city of solemnities. Things were done there not according to will worship or mere immemorial tradition, but according to Jehovah's definite instructions given in the wilderness through Moses centuries before. Praise continually waited for God in Zion. Jehovah loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. There was no day without its morning and evening sacrifice, and every Sabbath and new moon brought their peculiar additions. Nor must we forget the feast of the Passover, of the first fruits, of the Pentecost, and the great feast of the seventh month. If as nothing more than times of mirth and relaxation, these would play a large part in the life of the people, and true prophets and who soever among the priests had deep reverence for God would get much strength out of these services, finding in them, according to the measure of their faith, zeal and diligence, constant means of grace. Y. The decline of national religion. Nowhere has the great truth of the close dependence of national prosperity upon national religion been more plainly and emphatically taught than in the writings of the Hebrew prophets. Their spiritual insight detected the true cause of national degradation. Whoever looks below the surface may see that the decline and fall of nations may usually be traced to spiritual causes, to the loss of any hold upon eternal principles of righteousness and piety. T. 5. The sins of Jerusalem are here complained of as the procuring, provoking cause of all these calamities. Whoever are the instruments, God is the author of all these troubles; it is the Lord that has afflicted her (verse 5), and He has done it as a righteous judge, for she has sinned. H. 6. Her beauty departed from Zion. The dwellings of Zion shone splendid in cedar and gold. A softer beauty was shed over her from old memories and tender associations. The spiritual Zion has her beauty. It is not the magnificence of marble columns and gilded decorations. The beauty of Zion is the beauty of her worship and life. Adeney. 7. All her pleasant things. What these pleasant things are we may learn from Isa. 64 : 11, where, to the complaint of the burning of the Temple, it is added, All our pleasant things are laid waste; the ark and the altar and all the other tokens of God's presence with them, these were their pleasant things above any other things, and these were now broken to pieces and carried away. Thus from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed (verse 6). The beauty of holiness was the beauty of the daughter of Zion; when the Temple, that holy and beautiful house, was destroyed, her beauty was gone; that was the breaking of the staff of beauty, the taking away of the pledges and seals of the covenant (Zech. 11 : 10). H. The recollection of the past may be the occasion of the highest joy or of the profoundest sorrow. To remember former happiness is one of the great pleasures of human life, if that happiness did but lead on to its own continuance and increase. The first beginnings of a delightful friendship, the first steps of a distinguished career, are remembered by the prosperous and happy with satisfaction and joy. It is otherwise with the memory of a morning of brightness which soon clouded, and which was followed by storms and darkness. In the text the anguish of Jerusalem is pictured as intensified by the recollection of bygone felicity. T. It is foolish to yield to fond regrets of the pleasant things in the days of old. The past cannot be recalled. Let it die. The future is ours. The west will not brighten again with a return of the fading glow of sunset, but a new day will break in the east. We may call to mind the happy things in days of old, not to increase our present distress, but to encourage hope. The sun did shine, then it may shine again. God is the same now as ever. If He blessed in the past He can bless in the future. Former mercies encourage us to hope for better things still to come. Adeney. 9-11. Jerusalem's God is here complained to, concerning all these things, and all is referred to His compassionate consideration (verse 9), "O Lord, behold my affliction, and take cognizance of it;" and (verse 11), "See, O Lord, and consider, take order about it." The only way to make ourselves easy under our burdens is to cast them upon God first, and leave it to Him to do with us as seemeth Him good. H. 10. Spoliation and profanation. The presence of a foreign foe in its capital has always been regarded, and is still regarded, as among the heaviest calamities that can befall a nation. In our own times, a neighboring nation has been required to endure this humiliation and indignity, shocking its patriotism and its pride. We can understand how bitter must have been the anguish of the Jews when the Chaldean hosts patrolled their city, quartered themselves upon its inhabitants, appropriated its wealth, and violated the sanctity of its Temple. T. 11. The real need of the soul made manifest by experience. The greatest need of the natural life is bread, taking the word "bread" as representative of all food. Clothing and shelter, while they may indeed be reckoned as needs, are not needs after the same imperative fashion as food; and every one, however easily his daily bread comes to him, will assent to this same general truth that food is the great need of natural life. But he will only really feel this in such circumstances as are indicated in this verse. For a long while these people of Jerusalem had found bread lying to their hands when they were hungry. They could buy it, and have abundance of pleasant things beside. The feeling of their hearts was that they could not do without these pleasant things, and when at last they gave them up to keep body and soul together, it must have been with terrible pain they made the surrender. And what is true of bread for the natural life is also true of the Bread coming down from heaven for the spiritual life. Christians, living in the midst of all manner of pleasant things of this world, with no lack of money to buy them and faculty to enjoy them, try to feel at the same time that more than all pleasant things are the grace, the life, the wisdom, the everflowing fulness of the Spirit, which come from Christ. But all the testimony of believers proves that the pleasant things need to be withdrawn before it can be apprehended that Christ is emphatically the Bread. It is when we lose relish of nature's best contributions to our happiness that Christ comes forward, confident as ever in His power to satisfy us. Y. 12-22. The complaints here are for substance the same with those in the foregoing part of the chapter; but in these verses the prophet, in the name of the lamenting Church, does more particularly acknowledge the hand of God in these calamities, and the righteousness of His hand. H. 12. Sorrow unequalled, yet unheeded. Jerusalem sits alone in her unparalleled grief, and the bitterness of it is intensified by the pitiless disregard of spectators. Bedouins of the desert pitch their tents in sight of her ruined towers, and merchants passing north and south see her deserted streets, and yet all gaze unmoved at the heart-rending picture. Never was city more favored than Jerusalem. She was the chosen seat of Divine grace. In her Temple stood God's mercy-seat. High privileges of revelation and spiritual blessings descended on her sons and daughters. The loss of these privileges brought a distress that men who had never enjoyed them could not feel. They who have tasted of the heavenly gift will find the outer darkness more terrible than those who have had no anticipation of the joys of the wedding feast. Apostate Christians will suffer agonies which the heathen and godless will not have to endure. Never was city more loved than Jerusalem. This city of sacred memories and tender associations was dear to the hearts of her inhabitants. Her overthrow brought a grief that was proportionate to this love. The most fatal wound is one aimed at the heart. We are pained most cruelly when we are wounded in affection. What grief can be greater than that of parents for ruined children, and especially when the parents' sin has been the children's temptation? Never was city more visited by Divine wrath than Jerusalem. Here is the secret of her deepest trouble. She is afflicted in the day of God's fierce anger. God is most angry with her because she has sinned against most light, most ungratefully, and most rebelliously. Adeney. The bitter tears shed by our Saviour over impenitent Jerusalem are shadowed forth in the prophet's prolonged and profound lament over his own idolatrous and disobedient countrynmen. His well-known words, "Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by?" uttered concerning the sorrows of Jerusalem and her people, have come to be so universally appropriated to our Lord, that the prophet's own deep distress which they tell of, and the occasion of that distress, are alike almost if not entirely forgotten. "His sufferings come nearest of those of the whole army of martyrs to those of the Teacher against whom princes, and priests, and elders, and people were gathered together." To him, as to the great apostle, was it given to know "the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, and to be made conformable unto His death." P. C. She sits by the highway, and the crowd passes on, taking no notice. The spectacle of a conquered nation and a pillaged capital was not a rare thing. The nations asked to sympathize had been through the same experience themselves. We are all prompted to say, "Surely no trouble has been like our trouble;" and yet, as our observation of human affairs enlarges, we see how human nature, in every individual instance, is made to know its extraordinary capacity for suffering. Nevertheless, the piteous appeal here is not a baseless one. The trouble of the children of Israel had not come upon them after the manner of a common nation. They were peculiar in constitution, privileges and history. If only there had been eyes to see it, there was something very significant to demand attention. But the thing to be seen did not lie on the surface, nor was it to be discovered save by faculties specially illuminated. The downfall and the sufferings of Israel, as they are to be seen both in the Scriptures and subsequent history, belong to the things that are to be spiritually discerned. Therefore this complaint, while superficially it may be called unreasonable, is yet reasonable enough, if we only consider the position and mission of Israel, and the work which, even in her degradation, she has done for the world. Here was a nation that in obedience might have rested confidently and happily in Jehovah's promise. The power behind that promise was more than all the armies of the great empires round about. But when the power was withdrawn it meant not merely suffering; the withdrawing had in it the nature of a judicial, solemn sentence from Jehovah Himself. Y. 14,15. Figures of speech are multiplied; a yoke on her neck, made up of her sins and bound by the hand of God, against which she has no strength; the Lord "treading under foot her mighty men;" making all their strength of no account; and finally treading down the daughter (whole people) of Judah as grapes are trodden in a wine-press. H. C. 18. The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled. Righteousness in God is conformity with truth, justice and honor. It means that God has no subtle double-dealing, but acts in perfect integrity. He moves in straight lines. Further, it means that God is fair to all, doing, if not the same thing to each, which would often be unjust, that which is fitting for every one. It also includes God's regard for the standard of right in His government, His care to make His creatures righteous, and His determination to check all unrighteousness. Why we are to believe in it. It is declared most forcibly by those who know God best. Sceptical strangers may doubt it; but they who have entered into the presence of God, whether in holiness or in inspiration, alike agree in testifying to the righteousness of God. The deeper our Christian experience the more shall we be brought to admit this great truth. Adeney. The spirit of our life determines, by a most fixed law, the way in which God will treat us. It is perfectly impossible for the disobedient to escape suffering. But it is equally impossible for the obedient to lose their reward. Joy and blessedness, the exquisite peace and rapture of holiness, must come to them by the very nature of things. Y. 20. The cry of the contrite. Trouble, when it leads to an inquiry into its cause, when it prompts to submission and to repentance, proves a means of grace. The cry of suffering and distress may have no moral significance; the cry of contrition and of supplication is a sign of spiritual impression, and is a step toward spiritual recovery. T. 2:1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. 2. The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied; He hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; He hath brought them down to the ground: He hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof. 3. He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: And he hath burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about. 4. He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary, And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he hath poured out his fury like fire. 5. The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strong holds: And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. 6. And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; He hath destroyed his place of assembly: The LORD hath caused solemn assembly and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. 7. The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn assembly. 8. The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath stretched out the line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: But he hath made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together. 9. Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yea, her prophets find no vision from the LORD.10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sack-cloth; The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, My liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.13 What shall I testify unto thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?14 Thy prophets have seen visions for thee of vanity and foolishness; And they have not discovered thine iniquity, to bring again thy captivity: But have seen for thee burdens of vanity and causes of banishment.15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee; They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying: Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.17 The LORD hath done that which he devised; He hath fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: And he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee, He hath exalted the horn of thine adversaries.18 Their heart cried unto the Lord: O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; Give thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye cease.19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, That faint for hunger at the top of every street.20 See, O LORD, and behold, to whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?21 The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied.22 Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side, And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of the LORD's anger: Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed. Chap. 2. The strain of this chapter goes first to show that God has brought on Zion these fearful calamities for her great sins; and then to spread before the Lord the details of her sufferings as an appeal to His compassion. H. C. I-9. It is a very sad representation which is here made of the state of God's Church, of Jacob and Israel, of Zion and Jerusalem; but the emphasis in these verses seems to be laid all along upon the hand of God in the calamities which they were groaning under. The grief is not so much that such and such things are done, as that God has done them, that He appears angry with them; it is He that chastens them, and chastens them in wrath and in His hot displeasure; He is become their enemy, and fights against them; and this is the wormwood and the gall in the affliction and the misery. H. I. The anger of the Lord. Men have fallen into two opposite extremes of opinion and of feeling with regard to the anger of the Lord. There have been times when they have been wont to attribute to the Eternal the passions of imperfect men, when they have represented the holy God as moved by the storms of indignation, as subject to the impulses of caprice and the instigations of cruelty. But in our own days the tendency is the contrary to this; men picture God as all amiability and forbearance, as regarding the sinful and guilty with indifference, or at all events without any emotion of displeasure. Scripture warrants neither of these extremes. T. God not remembering His footstool. The ark was regarded as God's footstool; and the Temple in which the ark was kept was also sometimes called the footstool of God. When the Temple was destroyed and the ark stolen, or broken, or lost, it looked as though God had forgotten His footstool. The symbolism of the ark and the ritual connected with it give a peculiar significance to this fact. Adeney. 3,4. The "horn," as usual, is an emblem of power. The Lord had broken down all the military strength of the Jews. In the next clause, the Hebrew might mean either that God had withdrawn His right hand as one who would help His people no more, or that He had caused the right hand of His people to turn back before their enemy. The ultimate sense is substantially the same. H. C. 4,5. The Lord may become to us as an enemy. We must not suppose the relations of God to those who forsake Him to be purely negative. He cannot simply leave them to their own devices. He is a King who must needs maintain order and restrain and punish rebellion, a Judge who cannot permit law to be trampled underfoot with impunity, a Father who cannot abandon His children, but must chastise them in their wrong-doing just because He is so closely related to them. Let it be well understood, then, that in opposing ourselves to God, we run counter to a power, a will, an active authority. We provoke the anger of God. We do not simply strike ourselves against the stone, we cause the stone to fall upon us and grind us to powder. Adeney. If Israel had to say, "Jehovah acts as an enemy toward us," Jehovah had to say, "My people act as an enemy toward Me." These people had now for a long time been travelling in the wrong way, and it was in the very nature of things that the more they advanced the more opposition should multiply and become intensified. God not only appeared to be an enemy, but in certain respects He really was an enemy. He hated the evil that had risen to such a height among those whom He had taken for His own. Our love for evil is ever the measure of His hate of it; and the more determined we are to cling to it, the more His hostility will appear. God Himself always keeps in the same path of law and righteousness and order. When we, according to our measure, follow in His footsteps, then real opposition there cannot be; but the moment we think fit to become a law to ourselves and do what is right in our own eyes, then inevitably He must oppose us. Y. 6,7. The rejected altar. In the first elegy we read how the feasts are neglected by the people (chap. 1:4). Now we see that God Himself has broken them up and cast off His altar. Thus we advance a stage in understanding the deplorable condition of Jerusalem. At first the human side only is seen and the visible facts are lamented over. Then the Divine side is discerned and the terrible cause of the cessation of the solemn festivals revealed. It is not simply that the people cease to present themselves before the altar. God has abandoned and rejected all the Temple services. Adeney. There are occasions when it is well to ponder seriously the calamities which befall a nation, to lay them to heart, to inquire into their causes, and to seek earnestly and prayerfully the way of deliverance, the means of remedy. "They that lack time to mourn lack time to mend." T. The solemn feasts and the sabbaths had been carefully remembered, and the people constantly put in mind of them; but now the Lord has caused those to be forgotten, not only in the country among those that lived at a distance, but even in Zion itself; for there were none left to remember them, nor were there the places left where they used to be observed. Now that Zion was in ruins, no difference was made between sabbath times and other times; every day was a day of mourning, so that all the solemn feasts were forgotten. It is just with God to deprive those of the benefit and comfort of sabbaths and solemn feasts who have not duly valued them nor conscientiously observed them, but have profaned them, which was one of the sins that the Jews were often charged with. H. 9,10. Beautifully this elegy groups together those elements which made Jerusalem the joy of the whole land; not her gates and bars alone, but her kings and princes, her administration of law, and her prophets receiving visions from the Lord. All these had gone. H. C. 9. The prophetic office suspended. There is something of a climax about this statement that the prophets find no vision from Jehovah. Jeremiah has already spoken of God destroying the outward resources and defences of Jerusalem. Next, he mentions the exile of the king and the chief men, and then, as if to hint that it was a still greater calamity, he tells us how the prophet had no longer anything to see or to say. He did well to magnify his own office; for no office could be more important than that of the man whom God chose to communicate needed messages to his fellow-men. Y. The writer laments the loss of teaching and vision as abnormal and disastrous. The vision of the prophets was not simply nor chiefly concerned with the distant future and recondite counsels of providence. It dealt with present facts and unveiled their true character. It guided in the present and with regard to the uncertainties of the very near future. The humbler office of teaching was associated with it. The prophet, a seer of visions in private and on special occasions, was a teacher among his fellow-men and under ordinary circumstances. It is important to see how essential the knowledge of truth is to a healthy spiritual life. Without it devotion becomes superstition. Religion is based on revelation. The school precedes the workshop. Teaching must prepare the way for service. Adeney. The eternal law of righteousness, the ever-living witness of spiritual prophecy, can never cease. The words, the commandments and prohibitions, the outward ordinances, might pass away for a season of Divine displeasure, might be absorbed in the fuller revelation of the Gospel. But the principles of the moral law, the obligations of unchanging righteousness, can never cease; for they are the expression of the mind and will of Him whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. The vision may no longer be granted to the seer of Jerusalem; the city may stone her prophets or the Lord Himself remove them. But every purified eye shall through all time behold God's glory, and the ear that is open to truth and love shall not cease to recognize the voice of God. T. 11. Jeremiah speaks here in his own behalf, giving utterance to the grief of his heart. Yet any Jew who should read or chant this plaintive song might use these words of himself as expressing his own bitterness of soul. H.C. 12. The suffering of the children. It must be noticed how the mention of the children follows on the mention of the elders. There is suffering at each extreme of life, and hence we are to infer that there is suffering all between. The elders suffer in their way and the children suffer in theirs. The elders are bowed down with confusion, shame and disappointment. The children know nothing of this, but they are tormented with the pangs of hunger; and what a pathetic touch is that which represents them as breathing out their little lives into the bosom of their mothers! The sins of the parents are being visited upon the children. It has often been represented as a monstrous iniquity that things should be put in such a light, but is it not an undeniable fact that the little ones suffer what they would not suffer if progenitors always did what was right? These children were not clamoring for dainties and luxuries. Corn and wine, the common food, the pleasant grape-juice, what they had been used to and what all at once they began to miss. What is here said is a strong admonition to us to consider how the innocent and unsuspecting may be affected by our unrighteousness. All our conduct must affect others, and it may affect those who cannot lift a hand to avert ill consequences. The sufferings of children and infants, the immense mortality among them—these are things awful to contemplate; and yet nothing can be more certain than that the clearing away of prejudice and ignorance and hurtful habits founded on bare tradition would bring into child-life that abundance of joy which a loving Creator of human nature meant children to attain. But even with all the suffering there are compensations. These hunger-stricken children cried for bread, and getting none they poured out their lives into their mothers' bosoms; but they had no self-reproach. Remorse did not add another degree of agony to starvation. Y. 13. The captive city is a picture of the desolation and misery to which (sooner or later) sin will surely bring all those who submit themselves to it. The commiseration shown by the prophet is an example of the state of mind with which the pious should contemplate the ravages of sin and the wretchedness of sinful men. The Gospel forbids despondency over even the most utter debasement and humiliation of man. "There is balm in Gilead; there is a Physician there." T. 14. Very pertinently the prophet refers to this active and prolific cause of her ruin, the influence of the false prophets. The reader will recall the frequent allusions to the false prophets in the other Book of Jeremiah (chaps. 2:8; 5:30, 31; 14:13-16; 23:9-40; 27:14-18; 29:8, 9). The visions which they saw for the people were vain and foolish, false and without good sense. They did not remove the cloak which concealed the sins of the people—so the original implies; but had suffered those sins to remain hidden from view, and indeed had done what they could to keep them out of sight. If they had honestly exposed those sins, they might have forestalled the captivity and saved the nation. H. C. There are the deep things of God to be penetrated and explored by those willing to receive the insight. The Holy Spirit of God, offered so abundantly through Christ, is a Spirit of prophecy to all who have it. They need no formal prophet, inasmuch as they have a word, living and piercing, to all who take a right relation toward it. God means us to be occupied with serious, substantial matters, so large and deep and fruitful that we shall never outgrow our interest in them. The heart of man in its meditating power was made for great themes. The heart can never be filled with mere trifles. That is good advice given to preachers of the Gospel to speak most on the greatest themes, such as are set forth again and again in the Scriptures, and whether these things be preached about or not, every individual Christian should think about them. For while we cannot secure the topics of preachers, the topics of our own thoughts depend upon ourselves. It is just those who concern themselves a great deal about dogmas who are also most interested in the details of life and conduct. These prophets felt bound to magnify their office and say something. They ought to have spoken the truth; but for this they lacked inclination and perhaps courage. The next best thing would have been to remain silent; but then where would the prophet-reputation have been? and, more serious question still with some, what would have become of the prophet emoluments? Hence we have here the double iniquity that the false was spoken and the true concealed. The prophets could only get credit for their falsehoods by a careful concealment of the truth. They had, as it were, to paste on truth a conspicuous label, proclaiming far and wide, "This is a lie." This verse suggests how they had the common experience of one lie leading on to another. The true prophet said that the burden Israel had to bear and the exile into which it had to go arose from its iniquities. Whereas the false, or rather the unfaithful prophet, having set iniquity as the cause of trouble altogether on one side, could only go on inventing explanations which explained nothing. Ezek. 13 is a chapter which may very profitably be read in connection with this verse. The great lesson is to search for truth no matter with what toil, and keep it no matter at what cost. Y. 15. The glory and the shame of Jerusalem. Contrast with misery escaped heightens the joy of the rescued and the happy; and, on the other hand, contrast with bygone prosperity adds to the wretchedness of those who are fallen from high estate. There is a day of visitation which it behoves every child of privilege and mercy to use aright. To neglect that day is surely to entail a bitter overtaking by the night of calamity and destruction. T. 16. The triumph of the foe over the Church. The fall of Jerusalem was the fall of the Church. The enemies of the Eternal rejoiced in the destruction of His Temple and the scattering of His people. There are always adversaries on the lookout for disaster in the Church of Christ. The evil spirit of the world is vexed and shamed by the standing rebuke of a pure Church. Corrupt men see in her an example contrasting with their own conduct and thereby condemning it. Thus there arise dislike and enmity. The shame of the Church is a relief to this worldly opposition. There have been times when the name of God has been insulted through this evil pleasure of the wicked in the shame that the sin and failure of His people have brought upon His cause. Here is a motive for preserving the sanctity of the Christian Church. The loss of it will not merely involve suffering to the Church herself; it will encourage the foes of Christ by giving them the elation of victory, and it will dishonor His name by making His work appear unworthy of Him. Adency. 17. True to his mission as a prophet, and to his sense of the great sins of the people, Jeremiah returns continually to this vital truth, *The Lord has brought this calamity on the people for their sins.*** He had threatened it long centuries ago. (See De. 28: 15-67; Lev. 26: 14-39.) Now that the day of vengeance can be delayed no longer, He hath thrown down His Zion without pity; hath lifted her adversaries to power, and let them rejoice over her fall. H. C. Rain from God. In the fifteenth and sixteenth verses we find strangers and enemies indulging in unseemly jubilation over the fall of Jerusalem. Now, we see—what they do not see—that the cause of that fall was the direct action of God. This fact aggravates the dismay and wretchedness of the suffering city, for it signifies that her own King and Friend has brought about her ruin—not outsiders and antagonists. God Himself has handed her over to the contempt and derision of the world. At the same time, the sight of God's hand in the calamity reveals the folly of the world's triumph. How shallow and ignorant that appears to be directly the veil which covers the awful action of God is lifted! Man's spite and malice sink into insignificance before the awful wrath of God, as the growling of beasts of the forest is drowned in the dread roar of thunder. The triumph of man is also shown to be misplaced. Man has not done the deed. He is but a spectator. This is a dread work of God. Let human passion be hushed before the solemn sight. Adeney. 18, 19. The entreaty of anguish. This surely is one of those passages which justify the tile of this book; these utterances are "lamentations" indeed; never did human sorrow make of language anything more resembling a wail than this. T. 19. The citizens have sunk down in sullen despair. Night has come like a cloak to cover the scenes of misery and death. Then a voice rings through the darkness, "Arise, cry out." This voice bids all hearers pour out their hearts in prayer to God. Adeney. 20. It is a sad picture, and the Lord would surely have felt the most tender compassion over it, and indeed would never have either done or permitted it but for the presence of awful sin which He "could not pardon." Those mothers had burned some of their own children in the fire to Baal and Moloch. Those prophets and priests had utterly apostatized from God, and with their prodigious influence had drawn the whole people away from even common morality, and from the worship of the true God to the mad worship of idols. 22. As in the solemn assemblies on the national Jewish festivals, the people came in crowds and thronged the courts of the Temple, so the Lord had now summoned the awful terrors of war and carnage to throng thick around, so omnipresent indeed that none could escape. Even those who were yet in helpless infancy the cruel enemy had utterly destroyed. H. C. My terrors on every side . . . none escaped. The selfish, sinful man may get the evil day put off; he may find gate after gate opening, as he thinks, to let him away from trouble and pain; but in truth he is only going deeper and deeper into the corner where he will be completely shut up. God can surround us with providences and protections if we are willing to trust Him. No other power can surround us with causes of terror. Our own hearts may imagine a menacing circle, but it only exists in imagination. If we seek the Lord He will hear us and deliver us from all our fears (Ps. 34:4). Y. 3:1 I AM the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. 2. He hath led me and caused me to walk in darkness and not in light. 3. Surely against me he turneth his hand again and again all the day. 4. My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones. 5. He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail. 6. He hath made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead. 7. He hath fenced me about, that I cannot go forth; he hath made my chain heavy. 8. Yea, when I cry and call for help, he shut-teth out my prayer. 9. He hath fenced up my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked. 10. He is unto me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places. 11. He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he hath made me desolate. 12. He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. 13. He hath caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my reins. 14. I am become a derision to all my people; and their song all the day. 15. He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath sated me with wormwood. 16. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. 17. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace; I forgat prosperity. 18. And I said, My strength is perished, and mine expectation from the LORD. 19. Remember mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. 20. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is bowed down within me. 21. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. 22. It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. 24. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. 25. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. 26. It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. 27. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. 28. Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he hath laid it upon him. 29. Let him put his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope. 30. Let him give his cheek to him that smiteth him; let him be filled full with reproach. 31. For the Lord will not cast off for ever. 32. For though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. 33. For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. 34. To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, 35. To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, 36. To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not. 37. Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? 38. Out of the mouth of the Most High cometh there not evil and good? 39. Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? 40. Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. 41. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. 42. We have transgressed and have rebelled; thou hast not pardoned. 43. Thou hast covered with anger and pursued us; thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. 44. Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through. 45. Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples. 46. All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us. 47. Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and destruction. 48. Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people. 49. Mine eye poureth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission, 50. Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven. 51. Mine eye affecteth my soul, because of all the daughters of my city. 52. They have chased me sore like a bird, that are mine enemies without cause. 53. They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone upon me. 54. Waters flowed over mine head; I said, I am cut off. 55. I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the lowest dungeon. 56. Thou heardest my voice; hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. 57. Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not. 58. O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life. 59. O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong; judge thou my cause. 60. Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their devices against me. 61. Thou hast heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their devices against me; 62. The lips of those that rose up against me, and their imagination against me all the day. 63. Behold thou their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their song. Chap. 3. The title of the 102d Psalm might fitly be prefixed to this chapter, "The prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and pours out his complaint before the Lord;" for it is very feelingly and fluently that the complaint is here poured out. H.—In the interpretation of this chapter, we must assume either that Jeremiah spoke of himself, or of the people—for himself, or for the people—giving his own personal experience, or the experience of the people as a whole. I accept the former theory—viz., that Jeremiah here speaks of and for himself, giving his own personal experiences, and not specially those of the people. H. C. 1. The man that has seen affliction has gained knowledge of some of the deepest facts of life.** We do not know life till we have felt pain. Suffering opens the eyes to the facts of life and breaks up many idle dreams. Mere show and pretence are then felt to be vain and mocking. True friends are discriminated from idle acquaintances. The value of inward things is discovered. Adeney. Affliction leads some to doubt the existence of God. It is not uncommon for people to say in their hearts, what some even venture to say with their lips, "If there were a God, I should not be suffered to pass through misfortunes and sorrows so distressing and so undeserved." Affliction leads some to doubt God's kindly interest in human beings. Not denying the existence of Deity, these afflicted ones question His moral attributes. They ask, "If God were a Being of boundless benevolence, would He suffer us to go through waters so deep, flames so fierce? His kindness and compassion—were such attributes part of His nature—would interpose on our behalf and deliver us." Some who believe that God permits affliction misinterpret it as a sign of His wrath. This it may be; this it was in the case of Jerusalem. Yet God in the midst of wrath remembers mercy; He doth not keep His anger forever. And there are instances in which no greater misinterpretation could be possible than the view that suffering is mere penalty, that those who suffer most are necessarily sinners above all their neighbors. Affliction should be regarded by the believer as a proof 64. Thou wilt render unto them a recompence, O LORD, according to the work of their hands. 65. Thou wilt give them hardness of heart, thy curse unto them. 66. Thou wilt pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD. of Divine mercy and as meant for their good. Scripture represents suffering as the chastening of a Father's hand. The experience of many a Christian is summed up in the language of the psalmist: "It was good for me that I was afflicted." Affliction may thus become the occasion for devout thanksgiving. How often have mature and holy Christians been heard to say, "I would not, upon looking back, have been without the ruggedness of the road, the bitterness of the cup!" T. 7. Fenced me about.** Every life is surrounded by Divine limitations. God hedges all of us about. Some have a narrow field of freedom and others a wider field. But every man's field is fenced in. Within certain limits we have scope for choice and will. Yet even there choice is fettered. For there is not only the hedge that bounds our area of action, there is the chain on our own person that hampers our movements. Free-will is far from being unlimited. Or, if the will is not fettered, the execution of it is. Adeney. Sin is but another name for self-direction. We cast off the will of God in it, and set up for a way and for objects of our own. We lay off plans to serve ourselves, and we mean to carry them straight through to their result. Whatever crosses us, or turns us aside, or in any way forbids us to do or succeed just as we like, becomes our annoyance. And these kinds of annoyance are so many and subtle and various, that the very world seems to be contrived to baffle us. In one view it is. It would not do for us, having cast off the will of God, and set up our own will, to let us get on smoothly and never feel any friction or collision with the will cast off. Therefore God manages to turn us about, beat us back, empty us from vessel to vessel, and make us feel that our bad will is hedged about, after all, by His Almighty purposes. It would not answer even for the Christian, who has meant to surrender his will, and really wants to be perfected in the will of God, to be made safe in his plans and kept in a continual train of successes. He wants a reminder every hour; some defeat, surprise, adversity, peril; to be agitated, mortified, beaten out of his courses, so that all remains of self-will in him may be sifted out of him. Bushnell. The highest obedience is not the restraint of our will before God's will, but the assimilation of the two. We learn to will what God wills. Then we keep within the Divine limitations, and yet they cease to be limitations to us. They never touch us because we never attempt nor wish to cross them. Here lies the secret of peace as well as of holiness. Adeney.—Resignation to His will, waiting for His time of deliverance, confidence in His goodness—such is the attitude of heart in which true consolation and ultimate prosperity will be found. T. 9-13. We must interpret Jeremiah to say only, The Lord hath led me into paths of sore trial, where I found myself involved in constant reproach from my people, in more or less peril of my life, in no small suffering under imprisonment and torture, and an immense amount of heart-sorrow in benevolent labors for a people who could not be won back to penitence and to God. We ought to be very slow to interpret Jeremiah's words to mean that God seduced him into sin. H. C. 18. I have even given up all for gone, concluding, "My strength and my hope are perished from the Lord, I can no longer stay myself upon God as my support, for I do not find that He gives me encouragement to do so; nor can I look for His appearing in my behalf, so as to put an end to my troubles, for the case seems remediless, and even my God inexorable." Without doubt it was his infirmity to say thus (Ps. 77:10), for with God there is everlasting strength, and He is His people's never-failing hope, whatever they may think. H. 19-21. In his distress the sufferer cries to God, calling upon his great Helper to note his condition and remember it. Then he is calmed by prayer, and rests in the assurance that God does not forget his trouble. Recalling this thought to mind, he recovers hope. Adeney. There is gall and wormwood in the transgressor's cup, but it is in the after-taste that the bitterness is perceived. With those that suffer under the loving chastisement of the Lord, the case is reversed; all the bitterness is concentrated in the suffering, the after-taste is joy and consolation; no savor of the wormwood remains; but in proportion to the bitter quality of the first infliction is the delight with which he tastes and sees that the Lord is gracious, and full of compassion and loving mercy to His obedient children. No chapter in the Old Testament is more rich in comfort than this. The character of Jeremiah is peculiarly sweet and interesting; hardly could he finish his pathetic complaints, suggested by the sorrowing recollections of which his heart was full, before the promises of Jehovah burst upon his view with the brightness of a sunbeam, and the sudden transition of his thoughts from the anguish he had suffered to the assurances the Spirit had given him of blessedness that was to last forever, is one of the most striking instances to be found in all Scripture of the efficacy of Divine grace in wiping away the tears from off the cheek of the faithful. Anon. 22. At this point the meditations of the prophet take a turn. He looks away from his own and his fellow-countrymen's afflictions and directs his gaze heavenward. The scene of his vision changes. No longer the calamities of Jerusalem, but the character and the purposes of the Most High absorb his attention. There is a rainbow which spans even the stormiest sky. Earth may be dark, but there is brightness above. Man may be cruel or miserable, but God has not forgotten to be gracious. T. Let those who enjoy health and hilarity acknowledge dependence, and consider from whom the blessing comes. As there is a pride of family, of beauty, of riches, so there is a pride of health; and some of the most signal and admonitory reverses we have ever known have befallen families and individuals whose habit it was to vaunt that they owed nothing to the physician. Every day, if possible, every hour, let us give thanks that our health has had no interruption, or that it has continued long, or after illness and decay, that it has been restored. "It is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed, and because His compassions fail not." That balance of the faculties, mental and bodily, which causes each and all together to work to the greatest advantage, manifests itself by a natural lightness of temper and clear animation of spirits, which is most remarkable in youth, but which we sometimes observe even in the autumnal days of a beautiful old age. It is the greatest of all blessings to the body; but at the same time it is a blessing which nothing bodily has power to confer. And therefore, we must look higher. J. W. A. It is of the Lord's mercies. Here are mercies in the plural number, denoting the abundance and variety of those mercies; God is an inexhaustible fountain of mercy, the Father of mercies. We all owe it to the sparing mercy of God that we are not consumed; others have been consumed round about us, and we ourselves have been in the consuming, and yet we are not consumed. Had we been dealt with according to our sins, we had been consumed long ago; but we have been dealt with according to God's mercies, and we are bound to acknowledge it to His praise. Even in the depth of affliction we still have experience of the tenderness of the Divine pity, and the truth of the Divine promise. God's compassions fail not; no, not when in anger He seems to have shut up His tender mercies. These rivers of mercy run fully and constantly, but never run dry; no, they are new every morning; every morning we have fresh instances of God's compassion toward us; He visits us with them every morning. When our comforts fail, yet God's compassions do not. H. 22, 23. The unceasing mercies of God. It would seem, according to the best authorities, that we ought to read the first of these two verses thus: "The Lord's mercies, verily they cease not, surely His compassions fail not." Thus we are assured of the enduring character of God's mercies. How striking is this assurance, coming where it does after monstrous dirges of despair! In the Lamentations we meet with one of the richest confessions of faith in the goodness of God. The black clouds are not universal; even here there is a break, and the brightest sunlight streams through, all the more cheering for the darkness that precedes it. This is a remarkable testimony to the breadth and force of Divine grace. Surely it is a great consolation for the desponding that even the exceptional sufferer of the Lamentations sees the unceasing mercies of God! Adeney. New mercies are constantly bestowed. The successive stages of our earthly pilgrimage reveal fresh wants, call for fresh supplies from the bounty and benevolence of our God and Father. With new needs come new favors. Varying duties, fresh relationships and changing circumstances are the occasion of ever-renewed manifestations of Divine goodness. And our repeated errors and infirmities are the occasion of new manifestations of Divine forbearance and forgiveness. T. Every trusting child of God can have this prophet's comfort and this prophet's hope. The Lord's mercies are "new every morning," and he whose portion is by faith in Him who is ever saying, "Behold, I make all things new," can joy in every new morning as a New Year's morning—new in truth as well as in name. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things are passed away; behold they are become new." Old sins, old sorrows, old failures, old disappointments, old weaknesses—they are all passed away; and in their stead are new opportunities, new possibilities, new hopes and new strength. Faith in Christ is in itself "newness of life;" and its possession is the possession of the Fountain of Eternal Youth. To him who would find new freshness at any other fountain, Jesus says: "Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life." This is not a mere abstraction, but a practical truth for every-day help. There are those who have found the Fountain of Eternal Youth, and whose faces glow in its freshness—"new every morning." And there are careworn faces which are growing old in hopelessness, because they will not trust, and take, the Lord's gracious provisions for their spiritual renewing. S. S. T. 24,25. The sense of this is plain. To take God for one's portion implies the cheerful relinquishment of all good inconsistent with His service. You accept His will as your supreme law, and cheerfully forego everything that He declines to give. For better or for worse, you take Him and His work and His reward as your own, discarding all other portions, all other good. So doing, you are welcome to hope in Him. You may expect Him to deal well enough by you, and you can surely afford to be satisfied with whatever His allotments may be. The testimony of the prophet here is that the Lord will surely do well by all those who thus receive Him as their God and portion. It is safe to presume that His own experience through a life of terrible hardship testified to this great fact. H. C. 24. That God is, and ever will be, the all-sufficient happiness of His people, and they have chosen Him and depend upon Him to be such. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul. "When I have lost all I have in the world, liberty and livelihood and almost life itself, yet I have not lost my interest in God." Portions on earth are perishing things, but God is a portion forever. "While I have an interest in God, therein I have enough; I have that which is sufficient to balance all my troubles, and make up all my losses." Whatever we are robbed of, our portion is safe. "That is that which I depend upon, and rest satisfied with; therefore will I hope in Him. I will stay myself upon Him, and encourage myself in Him, when all other supports and encouragements fail me." It is our duty to make God the portion of our souls, and then to make use of Him as our portion, and to take the comfort of it in the midst of our lamentations. H. A "portion," as the word is here employed, denotes whatever constitutes the stable and permanent source of our chief enjoyment, as distinguished from an occasional and transient benefit. The prophet rests in God as his portion; places on God his expectation of good; concentrates all his hopes and affections, all the sentiments of confidence and complacency on Him, and on Him alone. Other beings might administer to his relief, but God alone could supply his supreme good. R. Hall. The happiness derived from the affections must arise from their exercise, and the highest conceivable happiness would arise from the perfect love of such a being as God. It is in this way only that God can become the portion of the soul; and thus He may become its infinite and only adequate portion. Let the affections rest upon a perfect being, and happiness, so far as it can be derived from them, will be complete; but when their object is not only perfect, but infinite and unchangeable, then is there provision both for perfect happiness, and for its perpetuity and augmentation forever. M. Hopkins. "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul." Though God alone is fit to be the portion of any of His creatures, He is not such to any, unless they choose Him. Till He is fixed upon as such, and preferred to all besides, we have no part or lot in His favor and perfection. All that choose this Divine portion first entertain such notions of His character, His administration and their own need of His favor as determine their choice of none beside. And when this choice is made, it is made with the whole heart; all the activity of the mind, all the powers of our nature, are well employed here; he that has turned to the Lord often retraces the course he has been led, often reflects with delight on the choice he has made; he never thinks of regretting it; the more experience of it he obtains, the more his satisfaction in it is confirmed; that this is his portion, his soul saith it; it never enters into his thoughts to doubt the propriety and wisdom of his choice; the consciousness of having such a portion illuminates the future, while it cheers the present. R. Hall. The secret of hope. The reader of the psalms is familiar with the utterance, "The Lord is my portion." The characteristic peculiarity of the adoption of this confession of faith by the sufferer of the Lamentations is his taking it as a ground of hope. The present is so dark that he can have little joy even in God. Earthly things are so unpropitious that he can hope little from them. But with God for his portion he can look forward from the troubles of the present and the threatenings of earthly calamities to an unearthly joy in the future. To have God for our portion is the secret of hope. Adeney. When the Christian is uniting himself with God and Christ by acts of faith, by efforts of devotion, contemplation, love, the influences of peace and union with Christ are such, and so endearing, that it is some participation of the Divine happiness itself. God is His own portion, His own rest, His own centre, and the Christian derives his happiness from resting upon that eternal centre of felicity, in finding in God a fulness of good; all desires being subdued to that one desire after happiness, which is only to be found in God. The communication of those holy pleasures which spring from love, from faith, from devotion, is to have fellowship with the Divine fulness of felicity. R. Hall. 24-26. God and his salvation are the object of his desire. Gladly would he possess them, but if he cannot, he will make them the object of his hope, and if hope fails, he will quietly wait. There is no case so desperate, no weary disappointment so prolonged, in which there does not remain some duty toward God. This is what we have to consider. In the 24th verse this sufferer speaks of his hope in God: "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in Him." In the 25th verse he speaks of "waiting for God." "The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him." And in the 26th verse he combines the two. "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." Ker. 26. It is good that a man should both hope. Hope is essentially necessary to faith; he that hopes not cannot believe; if there be no expectation, there can be no confidence. When a man hopes for salvation, he should wait for it; use every means that may lead to it; for hope cannot live if there be no exercise. If hope become impatient, faith will be impossible—for who can believe for his salvation when his mind is agitated? He must therefore quietly wait. He must expect, and yet be dumb, as the words imply, ever feeling his utter unworthiness; and, without murmuring, struggle into life. A. C. Quiet waiting. We are here first reminded that God does not disregard those who seek Him. Though His grace may be delayed, it will come in due time. Then we are told that this waiting for God's response to our prayers is for our good, provided it be patient. That this waiting may be profitable it must be quiet. Impatience wrecks faith and submissiveness and obedience, and all the graces that are necessary for a right reception of Divine salvation. It is difficult to be quiet while waiting. We grow restless and fret ourselves as the weary hours drag past. It is harder to wait than to work, because work occupies us as waiting does not. Yet we lose much for lack of patience. We are not quiet enough to hear the still small voice that would bring salvation. In our patience we must possess our souls if we are to receive into them the richest gifts of the goodness of God. Adeney. What is wanted is that we should put all our highest interests in the hand of God, and then go quietly about our daily opportunities of serving Him. When the passenger goes on board ship at the beginning of a long voyage he puts complete confidence in the captain, and thus he hopes and quietly waits for the voyage to come to an end. Through all perils of the sea he can only hope and quietly wait, knowing that the master of the vessel is the only one who can guard against the perils. And so in the voyage of life; we cannot shorten it, we cannot determine what its circumstances will be; but we can put ourselves in the hands of the great Guide. He will look after our safety, if we only take heed to our part in the doing of His work. Y. We must cultivate patience by a calm attention to duties. Quiet waiting is not inaction. We may be waiting for one object, while we are steadily working for another. If some aim that engrossed our life is withdrawn, and some way of usefulness that had all our affection is closed, we shall find there are other roads to walk in, and other works to perform, provided the heart will accept them. Even though the heart shrinks, if the hand will only give itself to what it finds to do, and will do it with its might, the heart will follow. It is a kind law of our nature, that labor expended on any object gives an interest in it; and it is a still kinder law of the kingdom of God, that the tament and most insignificant of daily duties may be made noble and divine, when the thought of God and the will of Christ are carried into them. One soul may rise to heroism in the narrowest circle of routine, when another dwindles upon the grandest fields of action. Thus the means are at our disposal for building up these virtues of hope and patience in our character. When we give our souls up in trust to God, He gives them back to us again with His hand on them, that we may labor to fill them with all that can make them happy in the future and strong in the present. We shall find increasingly "how good it is." It is good now in the depth of the soul, in the conscious assurance that it is better to rest in the hardest of God's ways than to wander at will in our own. "Behold, we count them happy who endure." We shall find it good in the growth of all the Christian graces, under the shadow of patience. Were we to gain every blessing so soon as sought, the blessing itself would be small, and we should gain nothing more. But now, while we patiently wait, faith becomes stronger, resignation sinks into a deeper attitude of reverence, gentleness and meekness are clothed with softer beauty, and courage and fortitude, and all the stronger powers of the soul, arouse themselves and put on armor "to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ." Ker. Hope and quietly wait. Contentment does not come of one's possessions or of one's position, but it comes of one's way of looking at these. He who realizes that he is where God wants him to be, and that he has what God wants him to have, will be contented with his lot and his store, whatever they are; but he who fails to realize this truth would never be contented, though he were the most favored man in all the world. S. S. T.—They that deserves nothing should be satisfied with anything; bless God for what you have, and trust God for what you want; if we cannot bring our condition to our mind, we must bring our mind to our condition; if a man is not content in the state he is in, he will not be content in the state he would be in. Erskine Mason.—The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the griefs which he proposes to remove. Anon. Discontent is a miserable fault. It grieves God, for it springs from a want of faith in Him. It destroys one's own heart-peace; discontented people are always unhappy. It disfigures beauty of character. It sours the temper, ruffles the calm of sweet life, and tarnishes the loveliness of the spirit. It even works out through the flesh, and spoils the beauty of the fairest face. To have a transfigured face, one must have heaven in one's heart. Just in proportion as the lesson is learned are the features brightened by the outshining of the indwelling peace. Besides all this, discontent casts shadows on the lives of others. One discontented person in a family often makes a whole household wretched. If not for our own sake, then, we ought at least for the sake of our friends to learn to be contented. We have no right to cast shadows on other lives. But how can we learn contentment? One step toward it is patient submission to unavoidable ills and hardships. No earthly lot is perfect. No mortal ever yet in this world found a set of circumstances without some drawback. Sometimes it lies in our power to remove the discomfort. Much of our hardship is of our own making. Much of it would require but a little energy on our own part to cure. We surely are very foolish if we live on amid ills and frets, day after day, which we might change for comforts if we would. All removable troubles we ought, therefore, to remove. But there are trials which we cannot change into pleasures, burdens which we cannot lay off, crosses which we must continue to carry, "thorns in the flesh" which must remain with their rankling. When we have such trials, why should we not sweetly accept them as part of God's best way with us? Discontent never made a rough path smoother, a heavy burden lighter, a bitter cup less bitter, a dark way brighter, a sorrow less sore. It only makes matters worse. One who accepts with patience what he cannot change has learned the secret of victorious living. J. R. Miller. I do not know that I can better mark out the limits of Christian contentment than in these words. The ills which we cannot cure we must bear, with Christian patience and resignation; and they are thus converted into blessings. But with anything in us, around us, or in the world, which is wrong, imperfect, unsatisfying, when it might be made better, there is a glorious discontent whose goadings should urge us to action. This noble discontent with the present is the great lever that moves the world. It has impelled man's progress in the arts and sciences, and social life, in government, in civilization; it has added its stimulus to the pious zeal of evangelists and missionaries in carrying the glad tidings around the whole earth. Like Caesar, it deems nothing done so long as anything remains to be done; like Paul, forgetting the things that are behind, it is always stretching forward to the things that are before. Let us cherish this discontent, this unwillingness to acquiesce in any evil which we can possibly remedy; and let us not be content with the absence of any good, unless it is impossible to attain it, or its attainment will interfere with other ends which our duties to God and our fellow-men make even more desirable. T. Chase. 27. In this matter of taking the yoke in one's youth, Jeremiah doubtless spoke from his own experience. He is supposed to have been not far from twenty years of age when the Lord put this heavy yoke of his prophetic mission upon his neck. (See Jer. 1.) He gave him then to understand that it would be a life of stern self-denial, of bitter opposition, and of great trial. H. C. That he bear the yoke in his youth. Early habits, when good, are invaluable. Early discipline is equally so. He who has not got under wholesome restraint in youth will never make a useful man, a good man, nor a happy man. A. C.—The discipline experienced in youth fits for the toil and suffering of after life. This is why it is "good" then to endure it. Many of the noblest characters have known trouble in early life, and have thus learned the wholesome lessons of adversity which have stood them in good stead in after years. They who are afflicted in their youth learn the limitation of their own powers, learn the inexorable necessities of human life, and become apt scholars in the great school of Divine providence. T. Here it seems to be meant of the yoke of affliction; many have found it good to bear this in youth, it has made them humble and serious, and has weaned them from the world who otherwise would have been proud and unruly and as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. But when do we bear the yoke so that it is really good for us to bear it in our youth? He answers in the following verses: 1. When we are quiet under our afflictions; when we sit alone and keep silence, that we may converse with God and commune with our own hearts, silencing all discontented, distrustful thoughts, and laying our hand upon our mouth, as Aaron, who under a very severe trial held his peace. We must keep silence under the yoke, as those that have borne it upon us, not wilfully pulled it upon our own necks, but patiently submitted to it when God laid it upon us. When those who are afflicted in their youth accommodate themselves to their afflictions and study to answer God's end in afflicting them, then they will find it good for them to bear it, for it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are thus exercised thereby. 2. When we are humble and patient under our affliction; he gets good by the yoke who puts his mouth in the dust in token of sorrow and shame at the remembrance of sin. H. 28. Alone.** The God of our lives puts into all of them some solitude, for a purpose of His own. Nothing else would do as well. He arranges it for us that we cannot be always in anybody's company. He keeps curtains about us, and drops them very often. Friend after friend departs. Something happens that tells you there is a space of mutual misunderstanding or want of understanding between you and the nearest and dearest heart on earth. There is a night between every two days. He ordains sickness, and shuts us in chambers, and sends us on journeys, and beckons away from us all our companions. Is it not plain that this is because the deepest and holiest exercises of the Spirit are where no human presence is by? Before the Spirit has done His deepest and best work in you He will have you all to Himself. The question of everlasting love is a private question: Wilt thou be Mine forever? The bridegroom must stand at your heart's door when no human form, or face, or voice, can come in between you and Him. Each succeeding struggle, when we get the better of a besetting sin, when we wrestle with a fierce tempter and finally cast him behind us, when we make the terrible sacrifice which carries us clear of some entangling alliance or corrupting but fascinating acquaintance and sets our feet on a rock, or when God Himself puts out His hand and cleanses us by some unsought suffering, is solitary work. F. D. H. Silence. Looking round on the noisy inanity of the world, words with little meaning, actions with little worth, one loves to reflect on the great empire of silence. The noble silent men, scattered here and there each in his department, silently thinking, silently working, of whom no mention is made. Carlyle. 30. The prophet, profiting by his own experience and by that of his countrymen, admonishes all to meekness and submission. In resistance is neither peace nor deliverance; in patient subjection and waiting is true wisdom, for such is the way to contentment and to final salvation. T. 31-33. The Lord will not cast off forever His real friends, those who humbly trust in Him. He may sometimes smite them sorely in chastisement for their sins, or, as in the case of Jeremiah, may lay heavy burdens upon them, because he has hard work to be done; but He will surely have compassion in accordance with the multitude of His mercies. Verse 33 expresses its thought beautifully: "God doth not afflict from His heart." H. C. God's good purposes in causing pain. All this is the language of hope, and continues naturally what is said in verses 21 and 24. The existence of present trouble presses upon the heart, but along with it there is the confident assurance of future deliverance. God casts men off, as it were, that they may realize their weakness and true state, and then, when they make the full discovery, God's hand is stretched out to restore. Y.—God does "cast off" and "cause grief." His love does not nullify His wrath. When grieved and disowned by God the soul feels utterly desolate. But the terrible judgment is only for a season. It will end in reconciliation and compassion. This great truth gives an entirely new complexion to our views of life and providence. We see at times the severe side. But we misjudge if we take that as a sample of the whole. Indeed, the very severity prepares the way for mercy; for God can show compassion after chastisement to a degree that would not be good before the wholesome discipline. Adency. "God does not willingly afflict the children of men;" He seems to share in the suffering while He inflicts it, and to feel the very pain of His own blows, while they fall heavy upon the poor sinner. Judgment is called God's "strange work;" a work that He has no proneness to, nor finds any complacency in; and therefore, whensoever He betakes Himself to it, we may be confident that it is not for the sake of the work itself, but that He has some secret, overruling design of love, which He is to compass after an unusual, extraordinary way. He never lops and prunes us with His judgments because He delights to see us bare, and poor, and naked, but because He would make us fruitful; nor would He cause us to pass through the fiery furnace, but to purge and to refine us. For can it be any satisfaction to a father to employ a surgeon to cut off his child's arm, were not the taking away a part found necessary to secure the whole? Common humanity never uses the lance to pain and torture, but to restore the patient. But now, the care and tenderness of an earthly parent or physician is but a faint shadow and resemblance of that infinite compassion and affection which God bears to His children, even in the midst of His severest usage of them. South. Evil and suffering are all around us, but it is a part of our faith in the fatherliness of God to believe that "He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men;" and to say with the psalmist, "I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." The universe is in the interests of comfort and happiness and joy. Everything is contrived to bend toward a blessing; God started man in Paradise; as good a Paradise as he could bear and a good deal better; and all that lies after Paradise is preparation for a Paradise improved. The Paradise regained is not the Paradise that was lost. God does not willingly afflict. There is no sorrow that has not lodged in it the possible seed-kernel of fruition. Faith in the fatherliness of God involves all this. When we experience vexation and tribulation we must always bethink ourselves of the issue to which in our Christian faith we are sure it is divinely designed to conduct. C. H. P. Thy Heavenly Father sometimes hides His face from thee, and withdraws His quickening and refreshing presence for a time, not for want of love, for He loves thee freely; He loves thee with an everlasting love; He loves thee with the very same love with which He loves Jesus Christ; and that dear Son of His loves thee with the same love His Father loves Him; but to put more heat and life in thine affections toward Him and heavenly things; to cause thee to relish communion with Jesus Christ, when thou enjoyest it, more sweetly; to preserve it more carefully, to joy in it more thankfully, and to shun more watchfully whatsoever might rob thee of it; to stir up all the powers of thy soul, and all the graces of God in thee, to seek His face and favor again with more extraordinary and universal seriousness and industry. For we find with pleasure, possess with singular contentment, and keep with special care what we have sought with pain. Seeming desertions then and delays of this nature are fruits of thy Heavenly Father's love, and ought to be no discouragements to thee at all, holding thy integrity. Bolton, 1631. God never dispenses any event to us, so much with intent to exercise His power over us, as to express His goodness toward us; He never "doth afflict or grieve" us more against our will than against His own desire; never indeed but when goodness itself calleth for it, and even mercy doth urge thereto. Isaac Barrow.—Omnipotence cannot do an unloving thing toward a believer. Oh, rest quite sure, Christian, a hard thing, an unloving thing from God toward one of His own people is quite impossible! The only question is, Art thou His child? If so, He hath rebuked thee in affection, and there is love in His chastisement. Spurgeon.—Take all afflictions as tokens of God's love to thee and trials of thy love to Him, and purposes of kindness to enrich thee, and increase more plentifully in thee His blessed gifts and spiritual graces, if thou persevere faithfully unto the end. Leighton. Consider your affliction as a mark of your relation to the Father of your spirits; a proof of His love and care; of His preparing you for His kingdom! He is melting you in the furnace, that you may bear His image. He values you too much not to bestow pains upon you. This is the mysterious process by which He is conducting you to heaven, and training you for its enjoyment. Be not, then, overmuch cast down! Remember the immutability of His promises; the stability of His covenant; the perpetuity of His love! "Remember the years of the right hand of the Most High!" Let those who have been afflicted seriously consider what has been the effect of their trials upon themselves. If no effect has been produced, what can they expect but "sorrow upon sorrow"? What but greater severity, since the former chastening has failed of its purpose? It is a fearful thing to have come out of the furnace hardened! to have produced none of those "fruits of righteousness," for the production of which the chastening was sent! Consider that unsanctified affliction can only be succeeded either by final impenitence or by greater affliction, in order to our recovery. Let us be anxious that, being made, by our trials, more patient, more spiritual, we may be found, as gold tried and purified, to praise and honor, at the appearing of Jesus Christ! R. Hall. Suffering is intended to prepare and make room in our hearts for the grace of Christ, because the tendency of the human heart, if left to itself, is to pride and self-dependence; and if suffered to work our own way, we will almost inevitably make shipwreck of our souls. He who has infinite wisdom knows what ballast of suffering we want, as well as what fair wind to swell our sails; and His love will undertake both for the one and the other, and so temper them together, that we may not be stranded on the heavy sands of adversity, nor be drawn off out of our reckoning by too strong a gale of apparent prosperity. Let us adore our heavenly Father for His merciful and wise dispensations, and pray with sincerity of heart that He will neither give us those possessions which would in any wise draw our hearts aside from Him, nor take away that suffering which is designed to drive us to Him, until it has wrought this effect, nor suffer our ears to get heavy or dull under His teachings. That is a striking word of Jeremiah, true, alas! of very many, "I spake unto thee in thy prosperity, and thou saidst, I will not hear." How often is it so, a man's ear wanton and ungoverned, or quite deaf to expostulation and to the voice even of God, and the heart obdurate as marble, till the deaf ear is pierced, and the hard heart made tender by suffering! Anon. Trial brings man face to face with God—God and he touch; and the flimsy veil of bright cloud that hung between him and the sky is blown away; he feels that he is standing outside the earth, with nothing between him and the Eternal Infinite. Oh, there is something in the sick-bed, and the aching heart, and the restlessness and the languor of shattered health, and the sorrow of affections withered, and the stream of life poisoned at its fountain, and the cold, lonely feeling of utter rawness of heart which is felt when God strikes home in earnest, that forces a man to feel what is real and what is not. F. W. R. The thought that God is training us for a wide sphere than this life affords is both ennobling to character and helpful in serving Him while upon the earth. We are at present absent from home. The classes for spiritual instruction are now being formed for our sakes; each soul is being called to his definite and appropriate place. The keenest, sharpest discipline God may find necessary in some cases. A prolonged stay in primary principles He may see to be the only way toward advancement. Even a seeming withdrawal of His favor may be the Divine way of dealing with some of us. He is our Teacher. His eye is fixed upon our spiritual growth. His providential arrangements are adjusted to our individual need. He is striving to lead us up to graduation into a perfect life, the chief characteristic of which shall be perfect readiness for service through endless ages. That we know so little of what that service shall be is only an evidence that its scope will surpass the limits of our present capacities. That will be the employment of perfected natures—an employment for which the school of this life is preparing us. Anon. Suffering subserves our sanctification, as it is a necessary means of self-knowledge, as it leads to self-conquest and promotes the growth of the Christian graces, as through self-knowledge edge it imparts the knowledge of duty to others, and as through self-conquest it prompts to and strengthens for the actual discharge of this duty. Thus we see that God's discipline is wholly for "our profit." Our heavenly Father chastens, not for His pleasure, but "that we may be partakers of His holiness." B. 34-36. The form of this Hebrew sentence makes it entirely clear that these three verses are to be constructed together thus: God does not look with favor on these things—viz., crushing under foot the prisoner; subverting a man's inherent rights before God; defeating his rightful cause. H. C.—In these verses certain acts of tyranny, malice and injustice are specified, which men often indulge themselves in the practice of, one toward another, but which the Divine goodness is far from countenancing or approving by any similar conduct. Blayney. 38. Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good? Do not calamities come from God's will and disposal, as well as prosperity? (See Isa. 45:7; Amos 3:6.) W. Lowth.—It is not sin, but suffering, that is referred to, as the context clearly shows. We have just been told that God will not cast off forever because He does not afflict from His heart. We are now reminded that it is not the less true that God sends adverse as well as pleasant things. Adeney. There is here an assertion of universal and particular providence. The inequality of the human lot has ever been the theme of meditation, inquiry and study. It has been attributed to chance, to men themselves, to the operation of law. But the enlightened and religious mind recognizes the voice and the hand of the Most High in human society, even when the immediate causes of what takes place are apparent. Nothing is so vast as to be above, and nothing is so minute as to be beneath, Providence. The afflictions and sufferings of life, as well as its joys and prosperity, are all allowed and all overruled for good to God's people. And all may become means of grace and blessing to such as receive them in a teachable and submissive spirit. T. Upon this theme of universal and intense interest a word of caution calls for suggestion. It is that very much of human suffering is the necessary result of purely natural causes, and is produced solely by man's own wilful or negligent infringement of fixed and known physical laws. To alter existing natural laws for every such infringement would be not only to work by perpetual miracle, but it would be to stop the complicated machinery of Nature, to reverse the whole movement of her admirable system and involve it in ceaseless changes and utter planless confusion and instability. And yet, notwithstanding this most obvious truth, it is a strange fact that the mass of objections to the doctrine of Providence and the loudest murmurings and complaints uttered against it relate to these very cases—to suffering induced simply by the ignorant or deliberate disregard, the voluntary infraction of physical laws. B. 39. Wherefore doth a living man complain. How great soever his affliction may be, he is still alive; therefore he may seek and find mercy unto eternal life. Of this death would deprive him; let not, therefore, a living man complain. A. C.—If we consider God's afflictions as a just reward of our evil deeds, this will prevent all murmuring and repining against Providence; especially as long as men are on this side of the grave, they ought to be thankful for having an opportunity given them for repentance. W. Lowth. Why murmur? The world is full of complaints and murmuring. It sometimes is observable that those whose lot is peculiarly fortunate, whose circumstances are peculiarly favorable, are foremost in complaint when anything occurs to them which does not fall in with their expectations, which does not correspond with their desires. On the other hand, we now and again meet with the poor, the suffering, the friendless, who display a cheerful, uncomplaining disposition. T. Murmuring is a species of blasphemy. You are in the Lord's guest chamber. You sit at His table. If you complain of the fare, you insult Him on whose bounty you live. If you doubt whether you will be taken care of, you impugn the truthfulness of Him who declares that He is more willing to give good things to them that ask Him than parents are to give bread to their children. If we had eyes and hearts of faith, we would see that whatever He gives is best for us. Anon. Sin is the cause of every other source of complaint on earth; were there no sin, there would be no sorrow. This holds good of the pain which comes directly from above, but not less of the pain which others procure for us—nay, even of that for which we have only ourselves to blame; not a suffering is to be named which stands entirely without connection with sin, by whomsoever perpetrated. Wherefore, then, does a living man complain, who through his sins has merited more than the worst of his sufferings, and has long since forfeited the enjoyments of his lot? Let us rather appear as our own accusers, than dare to criticise the ways and the work of a holy God! Thou, who so long and loudly complainest over an infinite number of things here below, complain above all of thine own sins, which have produced so much sorrow, and have closed to thee the only source of consolation. Van O. The woes of broken health and grim depression; the pains, the unspeakable agonies by which human bodies are wrenched for whole years; the wrongs of orphanage; pestilence, fire, flood, tempest and famine—how can a good God launch His bolts on men, we ask, in severities like these? And the sufferers themselves sometimes wonder, even in their faith, how it is that if God is a father, He can let fall on His children such hail-storms of inevitable, unmitigated disaster. No, suffering mortal! a truce to all such complainings. These are only God's merciful indirections, fomentations of trouble and sorrow, that He is applying to soften the rugged and hard will in you. These pains are only switches to turn you off from the track of His coming retributions. If your great, proud nature could be won to the real greatness of character by a tenderer treatment, do you not see, from all God's gentle methods of dealing with mankind, that He gladly would soften your troubles? And if diamonds are not polished by soap, or oil, or even by any other stone, but only by their own fine dust, why should you complain that God is tempering you to your good only by such throes and lacerations and wastings of life as are necessary? Bushnell. We cannot be useless while we are doing and suffering God's will, whatever it may be found to be. And we can always do that. If we are bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit, we are not useless. And we can always do that. If we are increasing in the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, we are not useless. And we can always do that. While we pray we cannot be useless. And we can always do that. God will always find us a work to do, a niche to fill, a place to serve, nay, even a soul to save, when it is His will, and not ours, that we desire to do; and if it should please Him that we should sit still for the rest of our lives, doing nothing else but waiting on Him, and waiting for Him, why should we complain? "Here is the faith and patience of the saints." Bp. Thorold. 40-42. At this point it was exceedingly appropriate that the prophet should change his strain of discourse to the plural, should include the people with himself, and so exhort both them and himself to most thorough, self-searching repentance, prayer and confession. The last clause was painfully true; the sins of the people had reached a depth of depravity that God could not pardon. H. C. 40. How are we to get the pardon of our sins? The prophet tells us: Let us examine ourselves. Let us turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart; let us make fervent prayer and supplication for mercy. Let us lift up our hand; let us solemnly promise to be His, and bind ourselves in a covenant to be the Lord's only; so much lifting up the hand to God implies. We have transgressed; let our confession of sin be fervent and sincere. And to us who profess Christianity it may be added, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as having died for thee; and thou shalt not perish, but have everlasting life. A. C. Self-introspection may easily, and will certainly, become morbid, if it be not checked by a constant outlooking of the mind. True religion is all comprised in two precepts, "Look into yourself to see your own vileness, Look out of yourself to Christ." Little enough health, comfort, peace and satisfaction shall we derive from the first of these precepts, unless we constantly couple with it the second. The knowledge and consciousness of guilt is only valuable as a background, on which to paint more vividly to the mind's eye the rainbow colors of the love of Jesus. Walk abroad ever and anon, and expatiate freely in the sunlight of God's grace and love in Christ. Breathe it, bask in it, walk in it, there is no other mode of really invigorating the spiritual system. A religion, if it is to be strong, must be joyous; and joyous it cannot be without the light of God's love in Christ shining freely into every corner of the soul. Goulburn.—Two things our afflictions should put us upon. 1. A serious consideration of ourselves, and a reflection upon our lives past. Let us try our ways, that by them we may try ourselves, for we are to judge of our state not by our faint wishes, but by our steps; not by one particular step, but by our ways; the ends we aim at, the rules we go by, and the agreeableness of the temper of our minds and the tenor of our lives to those ends and those rules. 2. A sincere conversion to God; "Let us turn again to the Lord, to Him who is turned against us, and whom we have turned from; to Him let us turn by repentance and reformation, as to our owner and ruler; we have been with Him, and it has never been well with us since we forsook Him, let us therefore now turn again to Him." This must accompany the former, and be the fruit of it; therefore we most search and try our ways, that we may turn from the evil of them to God; this was the method David took (Ps. 119: 59), "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies." H. Times of affliction are special times of confession and repentance. Usually in prosperity men will not be at leisure to search their hearts and take notice of their sins. Therefore the Lord draweth them to confession by drawing them from the world, by laying them upon sick beds, or by bringing them into straits. Caryl. 41. Our hearts must go along with our prayers; we must lift up our hearts with our hands, as we must pour out our souls with our words. It is the heart that God looks at in that and every other service; for what will a sacrifice without a heart avail? If inward impressions be not in some measure answerable to outward expressions, we do but mock God and deceive ourselves. Praying is lifting up the soul to God (Ps. 25: 1), as to our Father in heaven; and the soul that hopes to be with God in heaven forever will thus, by frequent acts of devotion, be still learning the way thither, and pressing forward in that way. H. "Drawing nigh to God" is the most comprehensive expression to describe the soul's attitude toward God. Prayer is the culminating point of this attitude. If we rightly view prayer, it embraces our whole life, our thought and feeling, our will and work, our conflict and rest. "Drawing nigh to God" describes the character of the Christian's life. In the meditation of our hearts, in the desires of our soul, in the activities and enjoyments of our daily path, we approach God; for we wish to live before Him, conscious of His presence, in constant dependence and in constant enjoyment of His grace. And all Divine revelations encourage us to draw nigh to God. They disclose the abundant mercy, the overflowing riches, the infinite love, awaiting us when we draw nigh; the atmosphere of free and all-sufficient grace which we breathe when we approach the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Saphir.—Prayer has just two limits: the first is, that its range is confined to the promises; but within these, what a bank of wealth, what a mine of mercies, what a store of blessings! The second is, that God will grant or deny our requests as is best for His glory and our good. He makes His answers to correspond with our wants rather than to our wishes. Guthrie. 42,44,49,50. When the believer's repentings are kindled, when he knows how evil and bitter a thing it is to forsake the Lord, and to depart from His fear, and when he considers how long God has borne with him, how many favors he has received, and how brutish has been his ingratitude, his heart is broken, his tears flow, he seeks the lowest place in the dust of abasement, wonders that affliction has not long since overtaken him for his carelessness and neglect, and bows down before the Lord without a murmur. At such a time the language of the afflicted soul will be: "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again unto the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. We have transgressed and have rebelled; thou hast not pardoned. Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through. Mine eye trickleth down and ceaseth not, without any intermission, till the Lord look down and behold from heaven." J. W. A. 43,44. What can be more dreadful than this! To have all hearing of our prayer shut off; clouds enveloping our great Father's throne which no prayer of ours can pierce through! To our joy let us remember that this can never be, save because of our great sins, and that then deep and true repentance scatters this cloud away. H. C. 44. So long as we are praying, rebelliously demanding our own way and not submitting to God's will, no prayer of ours can reach His throne in heaven. We may dare to lay our wish before God in humility, but yet in frank expression of it. Nevertheless, it can only be entertained by God when we add in spirit, if not in words, "Not my will, but Thine, be done." Thus may we cry to the void and have back only the mocking echo of our foolish prayer. We may send urgent requests toward heaven, and they will only lose themselves in the thick, black clouds of Divine disfavor which come between us and God. It is hopeful, however, for a soul to know this. When we see the cloud we are half-way toward the removal of it. Adeney. 48-51. In these points the prophet could not unite the people with himself, and say "Our eyes," etc. But of himself he could truly say it. He had said before, "O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night," etc. (Jer. 9:1). The strong expression, "rivers of waters," for intense weeping, is altogether Oriental. (See Jer. 9:18; Ps. 119:136.) In verse 51, the prophet means, "Mine eye saddens my heart;" my tears, instead of affording relief, seem only to make my sorrows the more poignant. The weeping prophet felt that he could not cease to weep until the Lord should look down propitiously and mercifully from heaven and reverse the sore calamities of His people. This was the great burden of his prayer and of his heart. H. C. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 4:1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most pure gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the top of every street. 2. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! 3. Even the jackals draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. 4. The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. 5. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: They that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. 6. For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were laid upon her. 7. Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire: 8. Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children; They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.11 The LORD hath accomplished his fury, he hath poured out his fierce anger; And he hath kindled a fire in Zion, which hath devoured the foundations thereof.12 The kings of the earth believed not, neither all the inhabitants of the world, That the adversary and the enemy should enter into the gates of Jerusalem.13 It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.14 They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, So that men cannot touch their garments.15 Depart ye, they cried unto them, Unclean! depart, depart, touch not: When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, They shall no more sojourn here. Chap. 4. This chapter resumes the strain of a funeral elegy from the close of chap. 2. The prophet bewails the calamities which have fallen on Jerusalem as a whole, on her infant children and on her guilty princes and leading men. H. C. 1-12. The elegy in this chapter begins with a lamentation of the sad change which the judgments of God had made in Jerusalem. The city that had been as gold, as the most fine gold, so rich and splendid, the perfection of beauty, and the joy of the whole earth, is become dim, and is changed, has lost its lustre, lost its value, is not what it was, it is become dross. The Temple is laid waste, which was the glory of Jerusalem and its protection; it is given up into the hands of the enemy. The stones of the sanctuary, which were curiously wrought, were thrown down by the Chaldeans when they demolished it or were brought down by the force of the fire, and were poured out and thrown about in the top of every street, they lay mingled without distinction among 16. The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.17 Our eyes do yet fail in looking for our vain help: In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.19 Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heaven: They chased us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits; Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz: The cup shall pass through unto thee also; thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; He will no more carry thee away into captivity: He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will discover thy sins. the common ruins. When the God of the sanctuary was by sin provoked to withdraw, no wonder that the stones of the sanctuary were thus profaned. H. 1,2. In the first clause I understand the word "gold" to represent, not the literal and identical gold which was yet in the Temple at its fall, nor the chief men in either civil or religious stations, but in general the glory and beauty of Zion. What was exceedingly beautiful and glorious has now faded and lost its splendor. The precious "stones of the sanctuary" are probably its building stones; tenderly sacred in the eyes of God's people, now thrown about rudely anywhere! "The precious sons of Zion," including probably both priests and princes who would naturally be compared to fine gold, how are they now only "as earthen pitchers," vile wares! H. C. 1. How is the gold become dim! How is the glory of the Temple obscured! The sanctuary now lies in ruins! And the stones of it are not distinguished from the common rubbish! In like manner the priests and Levites who attended upon the service of God, and the elders of the people, the members of the great Sanhedrim who kept their court within the precincts of the Temple, these persons, that might be resembled to the pillars or corner-stones of that sacred building, are now involved in the same common destruction with the meanest of the people. (See verse 16.) W. Lowth. 2. “Precious sons . . . fine gold,” . . . become “earthen pitchers.” The prophet’s appreciation of the proper dignity and value of his nation was naturally very exalted; in proportion were his sorrows and humiliation when his country rebelled against the Lord, and became, in consequence, a prey to the despised and hated foreigner. The reflections are applicable, not to Judah only, but to all the sinful and rebellious among men; for there is no escape from the action of the moral law, from the chastisement of the righteous Judge. The true value and proper dignity of man. Comparable to “fine gold” in beauty, preciousness and use is our humanity when in the state designed by the Creator, free from the corroding rust of sin, and minted and stamped with the image and superscription of the Most High. Sin involves chastisement, and chastisement brings disgrace. The striking contrast between gold, fine and solid, on the one hand, and “earthen pitchers” on the other hand, is a pictorial and effective representation of the change which took place in Judah. A holy nation, a kingdom of priests, the chosen of the Eternal, was reduced to the level of the poorest, meanest tribe vanquished and despoiled by an unsparing enemy. Here, as so often, the chosen nation was an emblem of humanity. For though man be by nature the sublimest of God’s creatures, when he is abandoned to sin and all its consequences he sinks below the level of the brutes. Only Divine grace and power can restore the beauty and dignity of which sin has robbed humanity. The Gospel of Christ transforms the earthen pitcher into the fine gold of the sanctuary. T. In the dimming of the brightness of the Temple mourning patriots saw an illustration of the shame that had come over the nation, and especially of the degradation of the noblest of the citizens of Jerusalem. But whenever rich gifts and graces of God are corrupted we may echo the same lament, “How is the gold become dim!” The graces of the spiritual life are as finest gold. God counts His people as His jewels (Mal. 3:17). Rare and bright and beautiful, glorious and golden in the sunlight of God’s love, is the character of true saintliness. There is no beauty comparable to the beauty of holiness. But alas! when the saint trails his white robe in the ways of sin and casts the pearls that adorn him to the swine, how is all the glory and beauty degraded! The fallen Christian defiles himself and dims his gold and brings shame on the name of Christ by his sin. Adeney. 3-5. These points in the description reveal the horrors of famine. Had the mothers of Jerusalem become heartless and cruel like the ostrich forsaking her eggs, that they should cease to furnish them sustenance? Job (chap. 39:13-16) gives the character of the ostrich who “leaveth her eggs on the earth and forget-teth that the foot may crush them; she is hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers.” H. C. A more graphic, a more terrible picture than this of the misery of a captured, starved and desolated city no pencil could paint. If the circumstances of the famine-stricken population of Jerusalem are portrayed with too literal a skill and with too sickening an effect, it must be borne in mind that the description is not that of an artist, but of a prophet, and that the aim is not merely to horrify, but to instruct, and especially to represent the frightful consequences involved in a nation’s sin and apostasy. T.—“The daughter of my people” would not have become cruel if her life had gone on in its ordinary way. But all at once the supplies that have been so regular become uncertain, and at last virtually stop. The cruelty, if in such circumstances it may be truly called so, is an involuntary one. And yet it is not involuntary in this sense, that the state of things was altogether unpreventable. The famine came from disobedience to God. It is stated on authority. It were presuming far too much to trace a connection between particular suffering and particular wrong-doing, but where the connection between particular wrong-doing and particular suffering is made perfectly plain, we shall be very foolish if we do not take heed to it. Whatever wrong thing we do will have some evil consequences, and we know not how soon they may come, how widely they may spread, and how much suffering and difficulty they may bring to the innocent. Y. 6. This verse sets forth that the punishment of Jerusalem was more terrible than that of Sodom, because the latter was sudden and transient, while the former was the slow torture of famine and the lingering slaughter of a siege. H. C.—God was doing nothing new or indefensible in allowing Jerusalem thus to be wasted and humiliated. The Israelites had in their possession illustrations more than one of how great sin had been followed by great suffering. Jeremiah quotes Sodom, and he might have said something about Egypt when God visited it with the plagues. We must not, of course, press too literally the statement that the sin of Jerusalem was greater than that of Sodom. The prophet's aim is simply to insist that no sin could have been greater than that of Jerusalem. If it was a right and a necessary thing that Sodom should be so suddenly visited, so completely overwhelmed, then assuredly no complaint could be made against the severe treatment experienced by Jerusalem. Indeed, relatively, Jerusalem might think itself very well off. If the height on which Jerusalem stood had sunk in another Dead Sea, there would have been no ground for complaint. No impartial Israelite, looking at the privileges of Israel, considering how much it had been instructed and warned, and how patiently it had been dealt with, could do anything but confess that on the whole it had been mildly visited. Y. 12. On the part of the Jews, this extreme self-confidence came of their strong presumption that the Almighty was on their side and would not let His Temple and His holy name go down before the heathen. Alas, they did not consider that their sins had provoked Him to wrath, so that instead of being their great defender, He must, by virtue of His own eternal attributes, become their terrible destroyer! This precisely was their grand mistake! They had lost the true idea of God as holy and just, and as demanding pure hearts and clean hands in His covenant people, and, moreover, as one who forevermore holds all nations to justice and righteousness, and visits fearful retribution on guilty oppressors. H. C. The people of Jerusalem had come to rest in the comfortable feeling that their city was reckoned impregnable. Do not let our safety rest in what other people think about us. If our safety is not of God, if it does not rest in trusting Him and obeying Him, then sooner or later that will happen to us in our life which happened to Jerusalem. The walls of our life will be broken down, our most precious treasures taken away, our hearts made desolate. Y. Jerusalem was deluded by the flattery of her neighbors. When there is a general opinion that all is well it is hard for individual souls to see and feel their danger. In a condition of worldly ease the prophet of repentance is opposed by the mocking indifference of popular opinion, and souls are lulled to sleep with a hollow security that says, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. The antidote to this dangerous anodyne of conscience must be sought in the Word of God, which speaks of judgment, and warns us to flee from the wrath to come for refuge where only safety can be found—not in the flattery of our neighbors, but at the cross of Christ. Adeney. 13,14. The false prophets and the wicked priests were the chief instigators of that persecution before which some (we know not how many) just men like Urijah (26:20-23) fell. For their sins they now wander like blind men in the streets, as men so stained with the innocent blood of victims murdered by their own hand that none could touch their garments. H. C. Once again, as so often, the prophet and priest stand forth in a shameful revelation. Their life is so contrary to their office. The prophet whose force should have come from the strong righteousness of his heart within and be directed straight against all evil-doers, is found ranging himself with the wicked and making evil put on the semblance of good. And as for the priest, he does holy things with his hands and offers sacrifices for sin, while those whose lives are a continual protest against sin he hates and strives to slay. Not that we must reduce the prophet and the priest here spoken of to the level of vulgar murderers. Doubtless, in many instances, they persuaded themselves they were right and doing God's service. Fanaticism and class feeling, where each one blows the flame of his neighbor's zeal, will urge men on to the greatest atrocities. There may be no danger, most likely there will be no opportunity, that we should go as far as these prophets and priests, but we need to guard against having their narrow spirits in our hearts. We may not shed the blood of the just, but nevertheless we may do much to hinder and trouble them. Y. 14. The cause of this blindness. Sin (see verse 13). Priests and prophets had shed the blood of the just. Gross abuse of power and tyrannous violence were iniquities enough to blunt the spiritual vision of the most gifted. This is one of the most terrible fruits of sin. It always tends to deaden conscience and darken the eye of the soul. We must do right if we would see truth. It is not only sensuality, passion and gross worldliness that debase the soul beyond the power of perceiving higher things, but more spiritual sins—pride, bigotry, self-will, etc.—also blind it. Purity of heart is essential to clearness of vision. The effect of this blindness. “They wandered as blind men in the streets.” Darkness of vision leads to confusion in action. We must see clearly that we may walk straightly. A confused conscience will make an uncertain will. Practical truth is not merely a subject for discussion in the seclusion of the study. It is a necessary chart to guide our course by. When the seeing and teaching of this is at fault all life is thrown into helpless disorder. 15. Jerusalem, when in her prosperity she abandoned herself to idolatry and immorality, was more unclean than when she lay in ashes a charnel-house of slaughtered citizens. Yet no man cried, “Unclean!” in the prosperous times. The degradation was thought to be defiling, while the sin which led to it was connived at. This mistake is common in various forms. The criminal with the brand of punishment upon him is shunned, while the far more vicious man who has contrived to keep himself safe is courted. Parents fear the corruption of manners which their children may contract by mingling with social inferiors, and yet permit them to mix with far more corrupt society if only the rank of it be higher than their own. Many people look with contempt on certain kinds of honest business, who will engage in pursuits of very questionable morality without compunction. We want a healthier conscience, that will declare no honest pursuit to be dishonorable and no immoral one to be respectable simply because patronized by rank and fashion. Adency. 17-20. Here the elegy speaks for the masses of the people. Up to the last moment their eyes were looking for some help that proved all in vain. They expected the Egyptians to intervene, but they could not save. The enemy hunted them so closely that none were safe in their streets. Clearly, their final end had come! Verse 20 must refer primarily to Zedekiah, then on their throne. They seem to have hoped that the Chaldeans would take him unharmed with themselves into captivity, and allow them to live quietly under him as their king. But he was “taken in their pits,” as a lion or a bear in the pit-holes dug to entrap them, and he found little mercy. How could they assume so confidently that God would save their nation out of His regard to kings so base and wicked as the last three—apostate offspring of the good Josiah—Jehoiakim, Jehoia-chin his son, and Zedekiah. H. C. 17. Vain help and hope. When Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans its inhabitants seem to have looked for assistance from their Egyptian neighbors. This was a policy and an expectation displeasing to Jehovah, who ever taught His people to rely, not upon an arm of flesh, but upon the eternal King of righteousness. In this verse the prophet pictures the attitude of the Jews as day after day they strained their weary eyes to catch some glimpse of an approaching deliverer. How striking a picture of the folly and vanity of those hopes which man fixes upon his fellow-man! 18. The end is come! The progress of the enemy’s works, the approach of the enemy’s forces, the frequency of the enemy’s assaults, all tended to dishearten the citizens of the besieged Jerusalem. The prophet represents the discouraged and dismayed citizens as gazing with terror upon the assailants and their strategy, and exclaiming in despair, “Our end is come!” The dealing and the discipline of God with the souls of the disobedient and rebellious may well awaken the same conviction and elicit the same cry. T. 21,22. This address to Edom is keen irony. “Rejoice and be glad” if thou wilt, O Edom; go on! So wilt thou only the more surely seal thy righteous doom! Let Edom exult in our fall, if she will. The wine-cup of God’s wrath will come round to her lips all the sooner and the surer; she will be drunken, and will expose herself in her nakedness and filth before all the nations. (See Jer. 25: 15-36.) H. C. It will be a righteous destruction; God will herein visit thine iniquity and discover thy sins; He will punish them, and to justify Himself therein He will discover them, and make it to appear that He has just cause thus to proceed against them. Nay, the punishment of the sin shall so exactly answer the sin that it shall itself plainly discover it. Sometimes God does so visit the iniquity that he that runs may read the sin in the punishment. But, sooner or later, sin will be visited and discovered, and all the hidden works of darkness brought to light. H. 5:1 REMEMBER, O LORD, what is come upon us: Behold, and see our reproach. 2 Our inheritance is turned unto strangers, Our houses unto aliens. 3 We are orphans and fatherless, 4 We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold unto us. Our mothers are as widows. 5 Our pursuers are upon our necks: We are weary, and have no rest. 6 We have given the hand to the Egyptians, And to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. 7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not; And we have borne their iniquities. 8 Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand. 9 We get our bread with the peril of our lives Because of the sword of the wilderness. 10 Our skin is black like an oven Because of the burning heat of famine. 11 They ravished the women in Zion, The maidens in the cities of Judah. 12. Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honoured. 13 The young men bare the mill, And the children stumbled under the wood. 14 The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music. 15 The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning. 16 The crown is fallen from our head: Woe unto us! for we have sinned. 17 For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim; 18 For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate; The foxes walk upon it. 19 Thou, O LORD, abidest for ever; Thy throne is from generation to generation. 20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, And forsake us so long time? 21 Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old. 22 But thou hast utterly rejected us, Thou art very wroth against us. Summary of the Book. In the first two chapters of this book the prophet describes principally the calamities of the siege of Jerusalem. In the third he deplores the persecutions which he himself had suffered; though he may in this be personifying the city and state, many of his own sufferings being illustrative of the calamities that fell generally upon the city and people at large. The fourth chapter is employed chiefly on the ruin and desolation of the city and Temple, and upon the misfortunes of Zedekiah. At the end he speaks of the cruelty of the Edomites, who had insulted Jerusalem in her miseries and contributed to its demolition. These he threatens with the wrath of God. The fifth chapter is a kind of form of prayer for the Jews in their dispersions and captivity. In the conclusion of it he speaks of their fallen royalty, attributes all their calamities to their rebellion and wickedness, and acknowledges that there can be no end to their misery but in their restoration to the Divine favor. A. C. Chap. 5. This chapter also is elegiac. The sad state of the Jewish people and of their beloved city is made the ground of their plea before God for His compassion and restoring mercy. The whole of this last elegy is in the form of a prayer. Other laments are interspersed with cries to Heaven. This poem is one continuous address to God. We see here true wisdom; for mere complaining is useless. To wail to the winds is foolish and vain. To make our troubles known to our fellow-men often avails little, for we may only weary them instead of eliciting their pity; or, if we do succeed in gaining commiseration, that may be of little real use to us. But God is the great Comforter. His ear is ever open to the cry of His distressed children. His heart is always tender to feel compassion for their woes. His hand is strong and willing to work substantial deeds of helpfulness. Adeney. 1-3. It is pleasant to see the language and the tone of prayer blended with this strain of bitter lamentation. It may well be our enduring joy that under any affliction, however severe, we may always look prayerfully and hopefully to the hand which visits upon us the affliction. "Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up" (Hos. 6:1). So here the writer brings up before God the desolations and the woes of His people as reasons why He should consider their case and return in His mercy to restore and to save. H. C. 7. Our fathers have sinned, and are not. Nations cannot be punished in the other world; therefore national judgments are to be looked for only in this life. The punishment which the Jewish nation had been meriting for a series of years came now upon them, because they copied and increased the sins of their fathers and the cup of their iniquity was full. Thus the children might be said to bear the sins of their fathers—that is, in temporal punishment; for in no other way does God visit these upon the children. (See Ezek. 18:1.) A. C. The sin of the fathers and the suffering of the children. This chapter is the complaint of those who suffer. "We," "us," "our"—these are the prominent words. The complainers are those who have lost inheritance and houses, become fatherless, and entered into a galling servitude. And now what do they give as the reason of all this terrible experience? This—that "our fathers have sinned." That was an historical fact. The utterances of former prophets, recorded, perhaps, in far greater abundance than we have any idea of, attested the iniquities of past generations. No generation of which there was any record had been without its disobedience. And had it not also been said that the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children? Hence there is plain logic in these words, "Our fathers have sinned . . . and we have borne their iniquities." Great is the suffering in bodily pain, in privation, and in emotion, of every generation; and each generation has a right to say that some, at all events, of this suffering would have been escaped if only preceding generations had lived according to the full law of righteousness. Hence the appeal to us, when self-indulgence presses with all its energies, to consider others. Indulging self, we have to make ready for after-pains; but those pains cannot be kept within the limit of our own lives. But we need to travel round to the other aspects also. There is a difference between retribution and suffering. Some kinds of pain and injury may be inherited to the third and fourth generation, but a guilty conscience belongs to the individual. The worst pains, the worst consequences, and those on which the Saviour looks with the most pity, are surely those coming out of our own wrong-doing; and searching into the connection between the sins of past generations and the suffering of the present one will do harm rather than good if such a searching tends to obscure our own lawlessness, our own want of attention to the requirements of God. There is, indeed, a great difference in kind between the suffering coming on us from the wickedness of others and that which comes from our own. Y. "We," says the prophet, speaking of himself and of his rebellious and ungodly contemporaries—"we have borne the iniquities of our fathers." The apostasy and rebellion of the former generations were visited upon those who endured the horrors of the siege and the degradation of the Captivity. There is mystery in the providential appointment that not only shall every man bear his own burden, but that some shall bear the burden of those also who have gone before them. But the fact remains, and it gives solemnity to the life of families and of nations. T. In private life, poverty, disease and disgrace are inherited by children from their parents. Now, it is a sign of the robust truthfulness of the Bible that this dark fact is distinctly recognized. There is no attempt to shun it because it is mysterious. We have in the Bible an honest, brave confronting of the evils of life, and not a system which is only beautiful to contemplate in idea and which cannot be squared with facts. This fact should not shake our faith in God. Men in all ages have faced it clearly and yet have retained their trust in Providence—e.g., the writers of the Bible. The very idea of faith implies that we must confide and wait in the darkness where we cannot understand. The necessary greatness of the scheme of the government of a world should lead us to expect mysteries in it. Adeney. 15-18. All joy and honor have ceased. Alas that we have so grievously sinned!—another wholesome admission that their national sins have brought upon them this desolation. It was peculiarly afflictive to every pious heart that their ever-honored Mount Zion had become so desolate, so abandoned of its former worshippers, that now, instead of men bowing reverently there in worship, the foxes go up and down upon it. H. C. 16. God is righteous, for we have sinned. All our woes are owing to our own sin and folly. If the crown of our head be fallen (for so the words run), if we lose our excellency and become mean, we may thank ourselves—we have by our own iniquity profaned our crown and laid our honor in the dust. H. 16, 17. The degradation of sin. The promise of sin is something very different from this; no flattery is untried, no prospect withheld which may induce men to rebel against God. But, as with our first parents, as with the dwellers in Jerusalem, so is it in the experience of all men; the promises which sin makes are unfulfilled; the wages of sin is death. T. 17. The faint heart and the dim eyes. Jerusalem had been satisfied with outward things. Wherever it turned there had been enough to satisfy its pride and its pleasure. And now Jehovah, by efficient agents, had taken these outward things away. The difference that had been made in Jerusalem was perceptible to any eye. But another difference could only be known when it was confessed—viz., the difference made in the hearts of the people when their outward circumstances were so completely changed. Proud, resolute men, full of joy in their selfish purposes, found the interest of life completely gone. It would have availed nothing if all these chastisements had ended in leaving the people real Stoics, able to say that it was all the same whether they kept their temporal possessions or lost them. God did not desolate Jerusalem for any delight that he took in this; it was to find a way to humble hearts that were unsubdued after every prophetic appeal. When men are delightedly occupied with the things of sense, then it is a great end gained if, through losses and changes, their hearts become faint and their eyes dim. For then they may accept the ministry of Christ to put into their hearts an energy which will tend for righteousness and direct their eyes to look on the world in the right way. Y. 19-22. Under a sense of human frailty, the passing away of generations and the falling of earthly thrones, it is a relief to the pious heart to turn to God and say: "Thou, Lord, remainest forever; Thy throne from generation to generation." The contrast is refreshing, and inspires hope in the saddest heart, especially when we truly accept this everlasting God as the enduring portion of our souls. H. C. It will be felt that this prayer is a fitting conclusion to the book. What could be more proper than that these people, having looked all around with an ever-deepening sense of loss and humiliation, should now look above? Upon earth, in strength or skill of man, there is nothing to be looked for; if anything is to be got it is by looking to heaven. This chapter has had in it the tones of penitence and contrition. It is admitted that the cause of all this desolation is the people's turning away from God. And now there is the petition which results from a full self-discovery. Inward weakness is discovered. The last cry of the book indicates that the turning of men to God is the great thing to be desired. Not a restoration to external possessions and comforts, but a turning to God consequent on His turning to us. The results that come from our being turned to God by His power will one day be seen to justify all the loss and pain needed to bring them about. Y. 19. Consolation in the supremacy of God. The Divine supremacy is often regarded as a topic of dread rather than as one of comfort. The awful throne towers above poor humanity, sublime and majestic, and men turn from it to seek refuge at the humbler footstool of mercy. But the writer of this elegy finds deep satisfaction in contemplating the supreme and eternal government of God. Adeney. The eternal throne. The believer in God has this great advantage: he has a firm conviction that all things are under the control and rule of a wise, righteous and benevolent King, who reigns both in heaven and on earth. Afflictions, personal and relative, may distress his mind, calamities may overwhelm his imagination and baffle his reason, but he has this consolation—he knows that the Lord remains forever on His throne. T. 21. Renewal. When they do not lead to improvement lamentations are profitless, though they may be unavoidable. It is vain to mourn the past if our grief does not help us to make the future better. Sorrow for sin is good only when it leads to an active repentance. It is therefore necessary that a true consideration of the miserable condition into which evil living has brought us should rouse an earnest desire for a new and better life. The writer does not simply resolve to do better, nor hope that a happier state of affairs will come about of its own accord. He prays, and the object of his prayer is to plead with God to produce the great change which is so much needed. Adeney. Nehemiah Adams, D.D., d. 1878. William Adams, D.D., d. 1880. Rev. W. F. Adeney. (Pub. Com.) J. W. A. James W. Alexander, D.D., d. 1859. A. J. Addison Alexander, D.D., d. 1860. Com. on Isaiah. Wm. L. Alexander, D.D., d. 1884. Rev. J. H. Allen. Dean Allix. E. B. Andrews. Bp. Lancelot Andrews, d. 1626. Joseph Angus, D.D. Anon. An Unknown Writer. F. S. Arnold. Thomas Arnold, D.D., d. 1842. William Arnot, D.D., d. 1875. John Arrowsmith, d. 1659. C. A. Auberlen, D.D. Augustine, d. 430. Clement E. Babb, D.D. Wm. G. Ballantine, D.D. Robert Balgarnie, D.D. J. T. Bannister, D.D. A. B. Albert Barnes, d. 1870. E. P. Barrows, D.D. William Bates, D.D., d. 1699. Richard Baxter, d. 1691. E. Bayley, D.D. W. J. B. Willis J. Beecher, D.D. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D. Bernard de Clairvaux, d. 1153. G. W. Bethune, D.D. Bp. Wm. Beveridge, d. 1708. Thomas Binney, D.D., d. 1874. T. R. Birks, D.D. Com. on Isaiah. E. C. B. Edward C. Bissell, D.D., d. 1893. Benjamin Blayney, D.D. Robert Bolton, 1637. Horatius Bonar, D.D., d. 1890. Rev. George Bowen. Bp. Bradford. Rev. Charles Bradley, d. 1871. W. Bright, D.D. Rev. Charles Bridges, d. 1869. Bp. Phillips Brooks. Thomas Brooks, d. 1682. W. R. Brooks, D.D. Arthur J. Brown, D.D. John Bunyan, d. 1688. S. Burnham, D.D. E. F. Burr, D.D. H. B. Horace Bushnell, D.D., d. 1876. Bp. Joseph Butler, d. 1752. B. J. Glentworth Butler, D.D. W. A. B. Wm. Archer Butler, D.D., d. 1848. Wm. Cadman, D.D. John Caird, D.D., d. 1892 John Cairns, D.D. Arg. from Prophecy. Rev. Gordon Calthrop. Augustine Calmet, d. 1757. Thomas Carlyle, d. 1881. A. Carman, D.D. Joseph Caryl, d. 1673. A. Caspars, D.D. Thomas Chalmers, D.D., d. 1847. Talbot W. Chambers, D.D. T. Champness. Samuel Chandler, D.D., d. 1756. W. E. Channing, D.D. C. Chapman, D.D. J. A. M. Chapman, D.D. Stephen Charnock, d. 1680. Thomas Chase. Chrysostom, d. 407. G. B. C. George B. Cheever, D.D., d. 1888. Christian Treasury. Richard W. Church, D.D., d. 1890. A. C. Adam Clarke, D.D., d. 1832. Samuel Clarke, D.D., d. 1682. C. C. Rev. C. Clemance. Rev. Wm. H. Cobb. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, d. 1834. P. C. Pulpit Commentary. C. C. Colton, d. 1832. (American Committee of Revision.) C. Rev. S. Conway. Prof. Josiah Cooke. H. C. Henry Cowles, D.D., d. 1881. Com. on Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations. Samuel Cox, D.D. C. Cron. Howard Crosby, D.D. John Cumming, D.D., d. 1881. Daniel Curry, D.D. T. L. Cuyler, D.D. O. E. Doggett, D.D. R. W. Dale, D.D. D. Franz Delitzsch, D.D. T. De Quincy. David Dickson, d. 1662. Dic. B. Dictionary of Bible (Wm. Smith). Marcus Dods, D.D. S. R. Driver, D.D. Rev. James Drummond, 1864. Prof. Archd. Duff. Howard Duffield, D.D. Jeremiah Dyke, d. 1620. J. Oswald Dykes, D.D. S. J. M. Eaton, D.D. A. E. Alfred Edersheim, D.D., d. 1889. B. B. E. Bela B. Edwards, D.D., d. 1844. Jonathan Edwards, D.D., d. 1758. C. J. E. C. J. Elliott, D.D. F. F. Ellinwood, D.D. E. Erskine, D.D., d. 1754. Christmas Evans. S. J. Evans, D.D. G. H. A. Ewald, D.D., d. 1876. P. F. Patrick Fairbairn, D.D., d. 1845. W. W. Farris, D.D. Fred'k W. Farrar, D.D. Fenelon, d. 1715. Samuel W. Fisher, D.D., d. 1879. John Forbes, D.D. J. F. John Foster, d. 1843. D. F. Donald Fraser, D.D., d. 1892. William Fraser, D.D., d. 1879. M. E. Gates. J. Monro Gibson, D.D. John Gill, d. 1771. George Gilfillan, d. 1878. E. H. Gillett, D.D., d. 1875. P. J. Gloag, D.D. Francis Godet, D.D. Rev. Francis Goode, 1848. Bp. Harvey Goodwin, d. 1892. E. M. G. Edward M. Goulburn, D.D. David Gregg, D.D. Andrew Gray, D.D., d. 1616. W. H. G. Wm. Henry Green, D.D. Geo. S. Grey, d. 1885. E. D. Griffin, D.D. Francois Guizot, d. 1874. William Gurnall, d. 1679. Bp. H. Thomas Guthrie, D.D., d. 1873. Robert Haldane, d. 1842. Bp. Joseph Hall, d. 1656. Robert Hall, D.D., d. 1831. James Hamilton, D.D., d. 1867. Wm. Hanna, D.D. J. H. John Harris, D.D., d. 1856. N. Hawthorne. H. Matthew Henry, D.D., d. 1714. Bp. A. C. Hervey. John Hill, d. 1746. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., d. 1887. A. A. Hodge, D.D. Rev. Wm. B. Homer, d. 1841. H. H. Herman Hooker, D.D., d. 1857. Bp. Hopkins, 1690. M. H. Mark Hopkins, D.D., d. 1887. Bp. George Horne, d. 1792. Bp. Samuel Horsley, d. 1806. John Howe, D.D., d. 1705. Wayland Hoyt, D.D. Rev. G. H. Hubbard. Bp. Huntingford. Bp. Frederick D. Huntington. Hermann Hupfield, D.D., d. 1866. Bp. Hurd. Prof. Thos. H. Huxley. Interior (Chicago). Edward Irving, d. 1834. Bp. John Jackson, d. 1885. Bp. John Jebb, d. 1833. William Jenkyn, d. 1685. Bp. F. Jeune. Wm. Jones (of Nayland), d. 1800. W. S. Karr, D.D. William Kay, D.D., d. 1886. John Ker, D.D., d. 1886. John Kennedy, D.D. John Kitto, D.D., d. 1854. J. H. Kurtz, D.D. Lamartine. Dean Law. A. H. Layard. Stanley Leathes, D.D. S. V. Leech, D.D. L. Abp. Robert Leighton, d. 1684. Leo the Great. T. L. Tayler Lewis, LL.D., d. 1877. Henry P. Liddon, D.D., d. 1890. Rev. N. Loraine, 1885. Bp. Robert Lowth, d. 1787. Wm. Lowth, D.D. Martin Luther, d. 1546. | | T. B. Macaulay.Alexander McCaul, D.D. d. 1863.James McCosh, D.D.Donald Macdonald, D.D. | | --- | --- | | A. M. | Alexander Maclaren, D.D.Sermons and Studies in many vols. and serials.Norman McLeod, D.D., d. 1872.Bp. Maclagan.Hugh Macmillan, D.D.S. J. McPherson, D.D.R. J. McGhee, D.D.Abp. Magee.Card. Henry E. Manning, d. 1892. | | T. M. | Thomas Manton, d. 1667. | | E. M. | Erskine Mason, D.D. d. 1850.John Mason, d. 1763.J. M. Mason, D.D.William Mason, d. 1791.Henry Melvill, D.D., d. 1871. | | J. R. M. | J. R. Miller, D.D. | | G. M. | Bp. George Moberly, d. 1885.W. E. Moore, D.D.E. D. Morris, D.D. | | M. | Rev. A. F. Muir.Rev. D. A. Murray. | | | H. A. Nelson, D.D.T. A. Nelson, D.D.Card. John H. Newman, d. 1890.Bp. Thos. Newton, d. 1782. | | O. | G. F. Ochler, D.D.Rev. J. Ogle.John Owen, D.D., d. 1683. | | J. P. | Joseph Parker, D.D. | | C. H. P. | Chas. H. Parkhurst, D.D.Blaise Pascal, d. 1662.W. W. Patton, D.D., d. 1890.W. M. Paxton, D.D.Andrew P. Peabody, D.D.Bp. Pearson.Austin Phelps, D.D., d. 1890.A. T. Pierson, D.D.R. S. Pool.J. L. Porter, D.D., d. 1889.Noah Porter, D.D.Bp. Porteus.John Prideaux, d. 1650.Wm. M. Punshon, D.D., d. 1880.E. B. Pusey, D.D., d. 1882. | | | Pasquier Quesnel, d. 1719. | | G. R. | Alexander Raleigh, D.D., d. 1880.George Rawlinson, D.D.John Reid, D.D.James H. Rigg, D.D. | | F. W. R. | Rev. Edward Robie.F.W. Robertson, D.D., d. 1853.C. S. Robinson, D.D.E. P. Rogers, D.D.Henry Rogers.J. G. Rosenmuller.John Ruskin. | | --- | --- | | | — | | | Bp. Robert Sanderson, d. 1663.Adolph Saphir, D.D.Prof. A. H. Sayce.Geo. H. Schodde, D.D.James Scott, D.D.Abp. Secker.Wm. Secker, d. 1660.J. H. Seelye, D.D.Rev. Ambrose Serle, d. 1815.Bp. Thomas Sherlock, d. 1761.J. M. Sherwood, D.D., d. 1890.Richard Sibbes, d. 1635.James Sime.Bp. Matthew Simpson, d. 1884.T. H. Skinner, D.D.Henry B. Smith, D.D., d. 1877.James Smith. | | R. P. S. | R. Payne Smith, D.D.Philip Smith.Spectator (London).Charles H. Spurgeon, d. 1892.Robert South, D.D., d. 1716.H. D. M. Spence, D.D.James Stacy, D.D.James Stalker, D.D.Dean Stanhope.A. P. Stanley, D.D., d. 1881.Geo. B. Stevens, D.D.T. P. Stevenson, D.D.Rudolph Stier, D.D., d. 1859.John S. Stone, D.D., d. 1882. | | R. S. S. | Richard Salter Storrs, D.D.John Stoughton, D.D.A. Strumpell, M.D.George Swinnock, d. 1673.William Symington, D.D., d. 1862. | | | — | | I. T. | Isaac Taylor, d. 1865.Bp. Jeremy Taylor, d. 1667.F. Aug. G. Tholuck, D.D., d. 1877Jesse B. Thomas, D.D.Chas. L. Thompson, D.D. | | J. P. T. | Joseph P. Thompson, D.D.R. E. Thompson, D.D.Abp. Thomson. | | T. | Prof. J. R. Thomson.Wm. M. Thomson, D.D.J. H. Thornwell, D.D., d. 1862.Bp. Anthony W. Thorold.E. Thurston, D.D.Abp. Tillotson, d. 1694. | S. S. T. Sunday School Times (Phila.) R. T. Reuben Tinker. L. T. Townsend, D.D. Abp. R. C. Trench, d. 1886. H. B. Tristram, D.D. H. C. T. H. Clay Trumbull, D.D. Francis W. Upham, LL.D. Karl Ullmann. Van O. J. J. Van Oosterzee, D.D., d. 1882. J. G. Van Slyke, D.D. C. J. Vaughan, D.D. Marvin R. Vincent, D.D. Alexander Vinet, D.D., d. 1847. C. Vitringa. W. Rev. J. Waite. R. W. Robert Walker, D.D., d. 1783. Ralph Wardlaw, D.D., d. 1853. Thomas Watson, d. 1869. Daniel Webster. Edward Wells, D.D., d. 1727. Rev. N. Woolsey Wells. Bp. Brooke Foss Westcott. Edward White, D.D. Bp. Sam'l Wilberforce, d. 1873. William R. Williams, D.D., d. 1885. Bp. Thos. Wilson, d. 1755. A. Winchell. R. Winterbotham. J. L. Withrow, D.D. Wm. Wogan, d. 1754. Theodore D. Woolsey, D.D., d. 1889. Y. Rev. D. Young. John Young. # Date Due | N 8 '39 | | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | O 31 '40 | | | | | Je '40 '41 | | | | | Apr '48 | | | | | Mr 16 '46 | | | | | JE 14 '50 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Introduction, | PAGE | | --- | --- | --- | | Chapter | I., | 9 | | “ | II., | 17 | | “ | III., | 26 | | “ | IV., | 33 | | “ | V., | | | “ | VI., | 38 | | “ | VII., | | | “ | VIII., | 44 | | “ | IX., | | | “ | X., | | | “ | XI., | | | “ | XII., | 57 | | “ | XIII., | 60 | | “ | XIV., | | | “ | XV., | 68 | | “ | XVI., | | | “ | XVII., | 75 | | “ | XVIII., | 78 | | “ | XIX., | 90 | | “ | XX., 1-44, | 91 | | “ | XX., 45-49, | 99 | | “ | XXI., | | | “ | XXII., | 105 | | “ | XXIII., | 107 | | Chapter | XXIV., | PAGE | | --- | --- | --- | | “ | XXV., | 110 | | “ | XXVI., | 115 | | “ | XXVII., | 119 | | “ | XXVIII., | | | “ | XXIX., | 131 | | “ | XXX., | | | “ | XXXI., | | | “ | XXXII., | | | “ | XXXIII., | 140 | | “ | XXXIV., | 147 | | “ | XXXV., | 151 | | “ | XXXVI., | | | “ | XXXVII., | 160 | | “ | XXXVIII., | 168 | | “ | XXXIX., | | | “ | XL., | 172 | | “ | XLI., | | | “ | XLII., | | | “ | XLIII., | 181 | | “ | XLIV., | | | “ | XLV., | 186 | | “ | XLVI., | | | “ | XLVII., | 191 | | “ | XLVIII., | | V | Chapter | I., | PAGE | 503 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | “ | II., | | 507 | | “ | III., | | 515 | | Chapter | I., | 522 | | --- | --- | --- | | “ | II., | | | “ | III., | 527 | | Chapter | I., | 535 | | --- | --- | --- | | “ | II., | | | | Introduction, | 547 | | --- | --- | --- | | Chapter | I., 1–6, | 550 | | “ | I., 7–21, | 553 | | “ | II., | 555 | | “ | III., | 559 | | Chapter | IV., | PAGE | 563 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | “ | V., | | 571 | | “ | VI., | | 573 | | “ | VII., | | 579 | | “ | VIII., | | | | “ | IX., | | 587 | | “ | X., | | | | “ | XI., | | 595 | | “ | XII., | | 599 | | “ | XIII., | | | | “ | XIV., | | 612 | | | Introduction, | | 621 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Chapter | I., | | | | “ | II., | | 630 | | “ | III., | | 635 | | “ | IV., | | | IN these frank, closing words I may be allowed, for the first and only time, to speak directly in the first person. In the Preface to the work (O. T., vol. 1, p. 6) I have briefly outlined the motive and the aim which constrained me at the outset of this undertaking. Now, at the close, I can affirm that this motive and aim have actuated me in all these eighteen years of almost unintermitted toil. And I can now also thankfully affirm that not only the origin and general inception of the plan, but its many diverse details have been so consciously impressed upon my thought as successive inspirations that throughout I have simply felt and toiled as one whose task had been assigned and gratefully accepted. That the toil has brought its own reward, the appreciative reader will understand; while there has been a perpetual encouragement in the added conviction of helpful service to all who desire a larger and more complete knowledge of the Living Word. In the interest of the great body of English-reading Christians I have sought to furnish an intelligent reply to every reasonable inquiry pertaining to the entire text of the Bible. This, indeed, has been the one ever-present thought in the labor of all these years. For this great end the material of these seven thousand pages has been gathered from the matured thought of more than twelve hundred devout scholars, of the past and present, and has been chosen simply with reference to its intrinsic worth as explanatory and interpretative of the meaning of the Inspired Text. The late Dr. Roswell D. Hitchcock accurately estimated the purpose and method of my entire work: "First of all, the exact sense of Scripture is carefully sought for, and then the innermost practical meaning of every passage is elucidated and enforced." And the late Donald Fraser, D.D., of London, justly said: "Although it makes no show of technical criticism, the expositions it furnishes proceed, as all interpretations worthy of attention must proceed, on careful, critical study of the text." No attempt has been made fully to discuss the mooted points of interpretation or of literary criticism. With but few exceptions the only form of antagonism to what may be regarded as error is a counter-statement of what is believed to be truth. One notable exception respects the theories of the self-styled "Higher Criticism." The main questions introduced by its leading advocates in Great Britain and America have been, in place, compactly but fairly presented and as fairly refuted throughout the Old Testament. The presentment and the refutation are mainly designed for the average student and teacher, and the intelligent reader, with the single motive of guarding their faith against the difficulties and doubts that naturally spring from the many complicated and confusing theories of the modern divisive school. I earnestly commend to every interested reader the thoughtful perusal of the many pages and paragraphs in which these theories are impartially treated. vii And, in this place, I cannot refrain from a passing reference to certain impressions which have resulted from the large study and comparison that I have been constrained to make between the two opposed schools of criticism. 1. Among equally advanced English and American scholars there seems to be an immense preponderance in numbers of conservative criticism over that which may be reasonably characterized as destructive. 2. The same preponderance appears in the superior quality of the personal judgment of leading critics, a fact which has a vital bearing upon the final issue of the conflict. The superiority of conservative criticism in this quality of judgment is strongly emphasized by the definite and harmonious conclusions of one class and by an utter diversity of views and by constantly shifting and altogether unsettled conclusions of the other. 3. A further comparison and a like contrast is suggested by the spirit and method in which the discussion is conducted. On one side, there is modest and reverent carefulness, as dealing with divinely given words; on the other, a self-assertive boldness which seems to ignore the Divine source and element in the words. 4. But a far graver charge lies against the modern school of criticism. It is that from first to last, in its essential and discriminating points, it exalts the form and framework far above the spirit and substance of the Sacred Writings. It is that in all its theories and discussions it utterly eliminates and virtually rejects the great spiritual truths whose embodiment in History, Psalm and Prophecy constitutes the single aim, the sublime scope and the supreme end of the entire Old Testament Revelation.* * Upon this vital point I cite paragraphs from Prof. James Robertson's "Early Religion of Israel," a book that will well repay its careful reader: "The books of the Old Testament themselves, though subjected to the most harassing criticism, and characterized as 'spurious narratives of late date,' smile at all such criticism, and give forth with confidence their testimony to a faith which is independent of time, and indifferent to modes of literary composition. . . . The self-styled 'higher' criticism is indeed not high enough, or, we should perhaps more appropriately say, not deep enough for the problem before it. The strongest objection, in fact, to the theory 'as a whole' is, that it hardly at all touches the religion round which the whole history properly turns. . . . Take, for example, the treatment of the Book of Psalms now in vogue in the higher circles of criticism. One would have thought that if anywhere the inquirer into the history of religions thought and life would find valuable 'sources,' it would be in this collection of the sacred and national songs of Israel. But Wellhausen, for example, who boasts that he could understand the history of Israel without the Book of the Law, can also dispense with the Book of the Psalms. In the 'index of passages discussed' appended to his 'History of Israel,' there is only one reference to one psalm (Ps. 73), which, too, of course, is placed very late in date. I think it a positive objection to the theory, not so much that it brings down the bulk of the psalms to post-exilian times, but that it is able to dispense with them as materials for a history of the older religion of Israel, and to relegate them to a time at which, according to its own showing, the religion had taken a more mechanical and formal phase. . . . Thus, by one stroke, the tongue of ancient Israel is struck dumb, as the pen is dashed from its hand; these artless lyrics are deprived of their spontaneousness, and a great gulf is fixed between the few which a niggardly criticism admits to be of early date, and the full volume of devotional song which in many tones was called forth by the shifting situations of olden times. Of course the hypothesis of a low religious stage in pre-exilic times demands this. . . . In the glowing periods of the earliest writing prophets, we have unmistakable evidence of the deep religiousness that suffused the minds of those who from the first guided the religious life of the nation. But all that side of the early religious history—and how much is that all!—might almost as well never have existed, for all that the modern historians make of it. The deep spirituality of Hosea, who stands like the Saviour of mankind weeping over Jerusalem, full of the very love of God; the strong ethical tone of Amos, and his enthusiasm for God; the lofty aspirations of Isaiah for righteousness, and his rapt visions of future glory—these surely are not isolated phenomena in the centuries that rolled over Israel when all that was best in the history was being achieved, but indicate a strong undercurrent of perennial religious life. Yet for all these, even taken in their isolation, how little sympathy do our modern critical historians exhibit! Whereas Ewald, in a past generation, came to the Old Testament books with a sympathetic spirit, and Delitzsch, in our own generation, with a piety pardonable in the circumstances heard in these prophetic voices the echo, thrown backward over the centuries, of the Gospel of Christ, we get nowadays some dry analysis of the 'idea' and the 'conception' of each prophet, and a grudging doling out of the attributes of might and holiness in the character of God, and reluctant admissions of nascent monotheism here and there; but we catch no fire from the prophetic words as they are weighed and measured out in the scales of the critics. These men, whose words are the fittest found even yet to express all that we can think loftiest of God, are represented as groping after the idea of one God, contending for the honor of a deity that is little better than a Chemosh or a Moloch; and when they cease to write and become men of action, they are set before us as moved by paltry motives of expediency, upholding the dignity of their order against the priesthood, or viii As a final word, strongly emphasizing the inestimable value of the Old Testament Scriptures, I would plead for their continuous thoughtful reading in alternation and yet always in close connection with the writings of the New Testament. They are one in their Divine source, one in their great and vital themes, in their disclosures of God, in His nature, His working, His ways and His dealings with all His creatures; one also in their showing of man's heart and his doings; and one in their revelation of a Race Redemption procured and proffered through the self-offering of a Divine-human Redeemer. But an essential feature in the method of the inspired Revelation is its historical as well as progressive character. And this fact it is that gives the Old Testament a special value and helpfulness that cannot be overestimated, and that demands for it, equally with the New Testament, careful and thorough study; for, in very truth, its pages present one continuous series of living object-lessons, actually existent illustrations, on the one part, of God's character and purposes and the principles of His dealings with men, and, on the other, of man's nature and treatment of God and of his fellow-men. On the one side, the recorded history of every individual and of every people, especially and largely the story of Israel, supplies abundant evidence in every particular of the sweet yet awful truthfulness of Jehovah's self-disclosure to Moses (Ex. 34 : 6, 7). On the other side, equally numerous and deeply affecting are its testimonies to the faithfulness of the Divine portraiture of man, as these are found in definite statements scattered throughout its pages. And now, with a renewed expression of deep and fervent gratefulness that "to me this grace" of helpful service has been "given," I close my long-protracted task in the hopeful assurance and with the prayer that through the crowning favor of God these volumes may long continue to bring light and help with every reading of their pages. conspiring with them to bring about a masterly movement for the concentration of religious worship directly under their own supervision. Feasts, sacrifices, incomes of the clergy—in such things, and in the centralization of the worship at Jerusalem, the history of religion is made to consist; but the heart of the religion is hardly looked at, or rudely torn out of it. "Let their literary analysis be ever so thorough, one who will read the Old Testament books as he would read any other ancient documents must remain convinced that justice is not done to them by a criticism which ignores their most characteristic element. The biblical theory says there was a course of history quite unprecedented, or certainly most extraordinary; the modern theory says that the history was nothing remarkable, but there was quite an unprecedented mode of imagining and writing it. . . . We ought gladly to welcome any help that comes to the aid of faith in such a God as the patriarchs and prophets are represented as making known—a God whose revelation of Himself has been advancing with brighter radiance, till it culminated in the manifestation of His Son Jesus Christ, who was the 'light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel.' Such a faith as Old Testament prophets possessed has been the blessing and the guide of the best of mankind in their achievement of the best up till this hour; such a faith is more than ever needed just at the present moment, to save the human race from losing respect for itself, and to rekindle hope and aspiration for the future."—Jas. Robertson. I add two brief paragraphs: "Criticism cannot touch the vital heart of the Bible. So far as criticism is revolutionary and destructive, it is not scientific; and so far as it is scientific, it is perfectly harmless, and in the main purely conjectural. . . . There is the Bible—potent in the past, and potent now. There, in its records, lies the broad line of revelation, in law and psalm and prophecy, growing more and more luminous until the day dawns in Jesus Christ. It is all clear and consistent, and history has crystallized around it. The heart of the world beats in it. The energies that have shaped the advancing centuries are here brought to view. It can never be outgrown; and it can never be discredited. There is an actual history behind it. There is a deathless life within it. And these are driving it with irresistible momentum into the present and the coming years."—A. J. F. Behrends. "To theological students I would give the advice, as the best safeguard against the danger of scepticism, to master first and last the contents of the Bible, and never to lose sight of its spiritual truths, which are immeasurably more important than all the questions of lower and higher criticism."—Philip Schaff. EZEKIEL, as the book which bears his name stands in our own and the Hebrew canon, is the first prophet who proclaims his message from the land of his captivity. The Book of Daniel opens with the third year of Jehoiachin, but Ezekiel begins with the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity. Daniel, therefore, had probably preceded Ezekiel into exile, and undoubtedly outlived him, but they were in exile together, though far distant from each other. Ezekiel was of priestly family, the son of Buzi. As, however, the name of his father is not otherwise mentioned in Scripture, we know no more about him. Ezekiel was partly contemporary with Jeremiah and Daniel, but Jeremiah had begun to prophesy thirty-four years before Ezekiel, and continued to do so for some six or seven years after his first vision; and as Daniel lived till the third year of Cyrus (Dan. 10:1), he in all probability long survived Ezekiel. Leathes. Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, the great prophet during the Babylonian captivity, was, like his predecessor Jeremiah, a priest. He was taken captive in the captivity of Jehoiachin, eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem. He was a member of a community of Jewish exiles who settled on the banks of the Chebar, a "river" or stream of Babylonia. It was by this river "in the land of the Chaldæans" that God's message first reached him (1:3). His call took place "in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity," B.C. 595 (1:2), "in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month." P. S. In the fifth year of the reign of Zedekiah, and therefore the fifth after the second deportation from Jerusalem, prophetic visions began to be sent to Ezekiel, on the banks of the Chebar. These visions spread over a considerable period. Among the earliest were those of the complete destruction of Jerusalem, and the desolation of Judæa. The treacherous conduct of the Egyptians, deserting the Jews in the extremities of their distress, furnished occasion for a blast against Pharaoh-hophra, whose destruction, with the desolation of Egypt, is also foreseen and foretold. Tyre also, which had latterly been a bitter enemy of the Jews, was doomed to speedy destruction. But Ezekiel's later visions were full of mercy and peace. They not only foretold the restoration of the captive people, but also the far higher and richer mercies of the Gospel; and his sun, like that of Isaiah, went down pouring both on Jews and Gentiles the golden lustre of Messiah's reign. Mercy was thus graciously mingled with judgment; and while the people were faithfully reproved for their sins, the penitent and believing were encouraged to hope in the not very distant advent of better times. W. G. B. Of the four greater prophets, two were priests and were contemporary. These were Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But while the former took an active part in the stirring circumstances of the times, and was subjected to much personal injury and wrong, the latter, already in the land of exile, regarded from afar and in personal quiet the strange events transacting in the land from which he had been taken, and took part in them only in mind and spirit. Hence less of the man appears in the prophecy of Ezekiel—less of personal history, of individual character, of human emotion. We know, in fact, very little about him. Ezekiel was, in his exile, stationed in the northern part of Mesopotamia, at Tel Abib, on the banks of the river Chebar. His family also were with him. It should not escape notice, that at this place the exiles from Judah, of whom Ezekiel was one, would meet the earlier exiles of the Ten Tribes, some of whom had been stationed there. This fact gives increased emphasis to the frequency of the prophet's warnings, from the example of desolated Israel. It was not, however, until Ezekiel had been five years at Tel Abib, that he was called to the exercise of the prophetic office. The embassy that King Zedekiah sent at that date to Babylon, and the letter which Jeremiah sent by that embassy (chap. 29), falls in with his call, and may be regarded as connected with it. Then, in a remarkable vision, he receives his commission to come forth among his people as a prophet, with a disclosure of the principal matters to be announced to them. Commencing from this time, the functions of the prophet appear before us in his book as forming a beautifully complete, a stately and harmonious whole. They fall into two grand divisions, of which the destruction of Jerusalem forms the turning-point (chaps. 1-24 and 25-48). During the period before this catastrophe, the prophet chiefly uses the language of rebuke and condemnation; afterward, of consolation and promise. The influence which Ezekiel exercised upon his contemporaries is of the highest importance. As in the days of Elijah and Elisha, the prophets supplied, in the kingdom of Israel, the absence of a true sanctuary, and sought, as far as possible, to occupy the place of the lacking priests of Jehovah; so the priest Ezekiel, by virtue of his prophetic calling, afforded to the deserted exiles a living witness that the Lord had not abandoned them, and that even for them a sanctuary existed, in which they might perceive the gracious presence of God. The more imposing the public appearance of Ezekiel was, and the more desolate and troublous the time of his appearance, the more powerful must have been the influence he exercised. We see proof of this in those accounts which show that the people and their elders, even from the earliest period of his ministry, gathered around the prophet, and listened to his words. In the words of God to the prophet, it is implied that the people were accustomed, at appointed times, to come to Ezekiel, to sit before him, and to receive his instruction with reverence. He was considered as a public teacher, who appointed meetings in his house as at a public school, and there, before a crowded assembly, interpreted the Divine will. Nor was this influence transitory or confined to his own generation, but was one that continued, and was much more comprehensive. If the Book of Daniel be considered as having had much influence in the formation of the views of later Judaism, it belonged to Ezekiel to exercise an analogous influence during the period of the Exile. Kitto. In reading Ezekiel it is always to be borne in mind that he was distant in space from the scenes he describes—e.g., in chap. 24 he is bidden to name a particular day, which was found afterward to be the very day when the siege of Jerusalem began, he being then in the land of his captivity by the river Chebar. In like manner, in chap. 8 he describes in detail the idolatrous abominations perpetrated in the Temple at Jerusalem, which he is shown in vision, though far away. The latest date given in the book is the twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's captivity, 527 B.C. (chap. 29 : 17). This is seventeen years later than the date of the first verse of the same chapter. The vision of the restored Temple (chap. 40) is dated in the twenty-fifth year. We learn incidentally from chap. 24 : 18 that Ezekiel was married, and that his wife died in the ninth year of his exile, 590 B.C.; also from 3 : 24 ; 8 : 1, that though in exile, he nevertheless had a house of his own. Probably, therefore, the condition of the captives, at all events in certain cases, was not an oppressive one; but its bitterness consisted in expatriation from the land of their fathers, which was itself intolerable to the Jew, with his highly developed and sensitive patriotic feelings. Of Ezekiel's later history nothing is known. There is every reason to believe that he died in exile, where it is evident that he was recognized as a prophet and held in honor by his fellow-countrymen, as we see by the fact of the elders of the nation often assembling themselves to receive his prophetic counsels and admonitions. Leathes. Ezekiel is, among the prophets, what Michael Angelo is among painters and sculptors. Vast and colossal in his imagery, majestic in his diction, copious in fancy, he nevertheless often transcends in his ideas the powers of language, and becomes obscure and difficult to understand. This is well exemplified in the vision by which he was called to his office. R. P. S. Ezekiel holds a place among sacred writers like that of Bach among musicians or of Chaucer among poets—less understood and appreciated by the general public, but the storehouse and inspiration of later authors—the musicians' musician, the poets' poet. Ballantine. According to the prophet's own record of his life, his heart was not in the land of his exile, but "in the land of his nativity." His own home, where he dwelt with his wife, and guided the counsels of the small community of the Chebar, faded from his eyes. Across the rich garden of that fertile region, across the vast Euphrates, across the intervening desert, his spirit still yearned toward Jerusalem, still lived in the Temple courts, where once he had ministered. Though an exile, he was still one with his countrymen; and in the sense of that union, and in the strength of a mightier power than his own, the bounds of space and time were overleaped, and during the seven years that elapsed before the city was overthrown, he lived absorbed in the prophetic sight of the things that were to be, and in the prophetic hearing of the words that were to be spoken, in this last crisis of his country's fate. Stanley. The Lord began to fulfil His good word, given to the exiles through Jeremiah, by causing Ezekiel to appear in the midst of them, who raised his voice like a trumpet and showed to Israel his misdeeds; whose word, like a threshing machine, passed over all those sweet hopes and purposes and ground them to the dust; whose whole manifestations furnished the strongest proof that the Lord was still among His people; an energetic, gigantic nature, who was thereby suited effectually to counteract the Babylonish spirit of the time, which loved to manifest itself in violent, gigantic, and grotesque forms; one who stood alone, but was yet equal to a hundred of the scholars of the prophets. The extent of his influence appears from the fact that the oldest of the people were accustomed to assemble in his house in order to hear the words of the Lord through him—a sign of the public and formal acknowledgment of his spiritual dignity in the colony. Hengstenberg. As inflexible as Jeremiah, and tenacious of his duty, Ezekiel was more stern and unflinching. To Jeremiah it was often pain and misery to obey God's commands, and his nature led him to brood over his own feelings and look into himself, while Ezekiel threw his whole heart into the struggle with an iron steadfastness that felt pleasure in the struggle itself. R. P. S. The prophet is distinguished by uncommon strength and energy. We see in him an individuality naturally endowed with great intellectual strength, penetrated and sanctified by a higher power to which it is made subservient. The appearance of Ezekiel as an inspired messenger of God must have been among the most impressive of any of those who under the Old Testament dispensation spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The glow of Divine wrath, the holy majesty of Jehovah, the mighty rushing of the Spirit of the Lord, as the seer himself had seen and heard them, were reflected in his discourse. He opposed with abruptness and firmness the corrupt spirit of the age in which he lived. When he had to contend with a people of brazen brow and stiff neck, he also on his part is of unbending nature, opposing presumption with unwavering boldness, and denouncing abominable deeds with words of consuming fire. This glow of discourse is united with a clear and constant prudence. The prophet never passes hastily from one subject to another, he occupies himself entirely with the one before him, embraces it with all his power, views it in all its aspects, and does not rest till he has completely exhausted it. Hence he often returns to the great leading thoughts that animate him. In these he lives and moves. Unceasingly he presents to the hardened ears and hearts of the people what the necessity of the case requires. And to this union of perseverance and strength the great efficacy of his eloquence is to be ascribed. Bibliotheca Sacra. His strong sense of responsibility produced in him a spirit of obedience; a firm, unflinching, and faithful obedience to every word of the Lord comes out as the constant habit of the prophet's life. With the simplicity of a child and the earnestness of a man, he did what he was bidden. That which, in relation to any human master, would have been degrading, became, in submission to a Divine Master, a principle of mental and moral elevation. He is an abject slave whose will is entirely subject to that of another man's; he only is free whose will is entirely subject to that of God. The grand lesson of this portion of Ezekiel's history is obedience to the Infinitely Wise and Good—obedience, even where it may seem fruitless; obedience in the minutest particulars, and the strangest service; obedience, though involving self-denial in our dearest affections, even to the very crucifixion of the heart. J. Stoughton. The writings of Ezekiel are distinguished from those of the other prophets in this, that his prophecies are full of images, of comparisons, of allegories, of parables, of personifications, and of descriptions, in which the prophet depicts his objects with such abundance of details and richness of colors, as leave little or nothing for the imagination of the reader to supply. When he launches the thunders entrusted to his hand against the crimes and prevarications of an apostate people, it is always with a vehemence and a warmth of feeling which no other prophet equals. In the ardor with which he burns, the crimes which arrest his attention are represented in all their blackness and deformity, and his diction seems then to take the hideous hues of the vices which he censures. We owe to him the clearest account of the forms of idolatry among different nations, to be found in any one portion of the Bible; the fullest and most interesting account of early commerce, and the productions of different countries, that exists in all ancient literature, and which to this day forms the basis of all historical speculation on the subject; and he has furnished us with a remarkable description of the usages of sepulture in nations far apart. All this admits of interesting corroborations from modern researches; and they cannot fail to suggest that Ezekiel was a man of cultivated mind and enlarged observation, who had noted, with a degree of interest unusual for a Jew in that age, the circumstances tending to illustrate the condition and sentiments of different nations, which he could ascertain by inquiry, which had been given to him by report, or which enforced and voluntary travel had brought under his personal notice. Kitto. The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel both speak of the fearful judgments on Ammon, Tyre, Edom, and Egypt, to which list Jeremiah adds Babylon and many others. The main objects of these prophecies seem to have been to assure the Jews that their own God shaped the destinies of all these heathen kingdoms, and that He had His own plans in mind beforehand, and, therefore, could predict them through His servants; but especially to impress them with a more deep and vivid sense of God's sure retribution on guilty nations for their national sins. This sense of certain retribution would be of the utmost moment in its bearings on their own case. H. C. Though the voice of the prophet may have sounded back to the country which he had left, Ezekiel's special mission was to those among whom he dwelt. He had, in the first place, to convince them of God's utter abhorrence of idolatry, and of the sure and irrevocable doom of those who practised it, and thus to persuade his hearers entirely to cast out idols from their homes and from their hearts. He had to show that the Chaldeans were the instruments of God, and that therefore resistance to them was both hopeless and unlawful, and so teach his people to endure with patience the lot which their own sins had made inevitable. He had next to destroy their presumptuous confidence in external privileges, and so to open their eyes to a truer sense of the nature of the Divine promises, and, lastly, to raise their drooping hearts by unfolding to them the true character of the Divine government, and the end for which it was administered. The Book of Ezekiel may be said in this respect to be the moral of the Captivity. For the Captivity was not simply a Divine judgment, but a preparation for a better state, an awakening of higher hopes. The state of exile brought with it longings for and expectations of restoration. These longings and expectations it was Ezekiel's part to direct and satisfy. It was his to teach the progress of the kingdom of God from the first call of Abraham to the establishment of the kingdom of David, and to show that this most triumphant period of his people's history was but a shadow of still greater glory. B. C. Ezekiel is emphatically the prophet of the moral significance of the Law and of personal responsibility. He is full of the subject in its definite shape. The crimes and transgressions of his people are moral crimes. The tremendous disasters of Israel are the direct result of gross rebellion against the moral law. The burden of his teaching is that the history of nations, whether in Tyre, or Egypt, or Jerusalem, is no chance accident; that their ruin is the natural and inevitable consequence of their disloyalty to righteousness and truth. Church. One of the immediate effects of the Captivity was the reunion of the severed tribes of Israel. For although the place of Ezekiel's abode may not have been identical with that of the exiles of the Ten Tribes, still the exile of the Jews brought them into contact with their brethren of the earlier exile. The political reasons which had sundered them were at an end; a common lot begat sympathy in the sufferers; and those of the Ten Tribes who even in their separation had been conscious of a natural unity, and could not but recognize in the representative of David the true centre of union, would be naturally inclined to seek this unity in amalgamation with the exiles of Judah. Accordingly we find in Ezekiel the terms Judah and Israel applied indiscriminately to those among whom the prophet dwelt; and the sins of Israel, no less than those of Judah, are summed up in the reproof of his countrymen. All descendants of Abraham were again being drawn together as one people, and this was to be effected by the separated members gathering again around the legitimate centre of government and of worship, under the supremacy of Judah. This will account for the name of Israel being lost in that of Judah, for the decree of Cyrus being addressed to the fathers of Judah and Benjamin (Ezra 1: 5), and for the people's returning under the name of Jews, while we find in much later days mention of members of other tribes (Luke 2: 36). Paul also speaks of the twelve tribes of Israel (Acts 26: 7). The time of captivity was the time of reunion. Ezekiel's mission was to the house of Israel, not only to those who came out with him from Jerusalem or Judah, but to those also of the stock whom he found residing in a foreign land, where they had been settled for more than one hundred years (37 : 16 and 48 : 1). The period during which Ezekiel prophesied in Chaldea was signalized by the miserable reign of Zedekiah, ending in his imprisonment and death; by the destruction of the Temple, the sack of Jerusalem, and the final deportation of its inhabitants; by Gedaliah's short regency over the poor remnant left behind in the country, his treacherous murder, and the flight of the conspirators, conveying Jeremiah with them, into Egypt; by Nebuchadnezzar's conquests in the neighboring countries, and especially his prolonged siege of Tyre. The year in which Ezekiel delivered his prophecies against Egypt corresponds with the first year of the reign of Pharaoh-hophra, the Apries of Herodotus. The accession of this king to the Egyptian throne affected very materially the future of the kingdom of Judah. Since the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar the Jews had found the service of the Chaldeans a hard one, and were ready at any moment to rise and shake off the yoke. Zedekiah, though the creature of the Babylonian monarch, shared the burden, and could not but share the feelings of his subjects. Nor was the character of either people or king such that they were likely to be restrained by the repeated oaths of fidelity which they had made to Nebuchadnezzar. It was, however, clear that there was no hope of success from any combinations with small neighboring States enslaved like themselves. Egypt was the only power from which they could hope for effectual support. And Egypt had long been inactive. The power of Necho was broken at Carchemish (Jer. 46 : 2 ; 2 K. 24 : 7). Psammetichus II. (the Psammis of Herodotus), his son and successor, seems to have been a feeble prince; he was, moreover, occupied in an Ethiopian war during part of his reign (which lasted only seven years), but Hophra was of a very different stamp. Herodotus tells us (ii. 161) that no former king of Egypt except his great-grandfather, Psammetichus, was so prosperous in his undertakings as Apries; that he reigned twenty-five years, in the course of which he marched against Sidon and conducted an expedition by sea against the king of Tyre. It is clear that he was minded to recover the ground which his grandfather and father had lost in Palestine and in Syria. Rumors of these designs had no doubt reached the Jews, both in Jerusalem and in captivity, and they were watching their opportunity to break with Babylon and ally themselves with Egypt. Against such alliance Ezekiel came forward to protest. He told his countrymen that their hopes of safety lay not in shaking off a yoke, which they could not do without the grossest perjury, but in repenting of their sins, and turning to the God of their fathers. The fallacy of the hopes entertained by the Jews of deliverance through Egypt was soon made manifest. In the course of the final siege of Jerusalem Hophra attempted a diversion which proved unsuccessful. Nebuchadnezzar left the siege of Jerusalem to attack the Egyptians, who, if not defeated in battle (as Josephus says they were, Antiq. Jud., x. 10), were at least forced to retreat over the borders, and offered no further resistance to the captor of Jerusalem (Jer. 37 : 5-8). It was at this time that Ezekiel commenced the series of prophecies against Egypt (29-32), which were continued until the blow fell upon that country which ended in the ruin and deposition of Pharaoh-hophra. B. C. The leading characteristics of Ezekiel's prophecies are, first, his use of visions; secondly, his constant reference to the earlier writings of the Old Testament. The second of these characteristics is especially seen by his application of the Pentateuch. He represents and enforces its lessons, recognizing therein the word of God, that will make itself heard and obeyed. It is not merely the voice of a priest, imbued with the law which it was his profession to study. It is the voice of the Holy Spirit Himself, teaching us that the Law, which came from God, is ever just, wise, and holy, and preparing the way for the enlarged interpretation of the ancient testimonies, which our blessed Lord Himself afterward promulgated; and instructing us to read, in the spirit of its commandments and of its ordinances, those moral truths and those mysterious doctrines upon which is founded and established the salvation of man. These ordinances were but the shell, containing within the kernels of eternal truth; these were the shadows, not the substance; and when the Spirit of God would reveal by the mouth of Ezekiel spiritual realities, He permitted the prophet to clothe them in those symbols with which he and his country were familiar. How far they were permitted to interpret the symbols is uncertain; but there is quite enough in the prophecies of the Old Testament, and in the declarations of the New, to convince us that such knowledge was not entirely withheld; and the vision of the Temple, with which the book closes, difficult indeed in many points still, would be utterly strange and incomprehensible, were we to see in it no more than a material fabric, and in its service nothing beyond the reorganization of a Levitical priesthood and worship. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/